Anybody else get noise while adjusting the pot for volume?  It's kinda annoying.. It happens with or without the power supply plugged in.

Quote: Haha good point.  There's really nothing wrong with the sound coming out of my laptop.  It's pretty awesome.  I bought the amp thinking maybe I would get even better sound.  But yeah, it seems like if I wanted a real upgrade I would need to go to the next step and get some better...

Double amping might be the problem.  When I use my headphone straight into laptop, setting the volume anything above ~50% is way too loud.  So I guess there's a pretty powerful amp in there already.  Since I don't listen to music on my cell phone that often, I'm really only concerned with...

Gary is an AWESOME guy, no doubt about that.  But I don't know about the amp...  I'm using it connected to my laptop's headphone out, then thru the amp to ath-m50s.  To me without the amp the sound is much more crisp and detailed, sound stage wider, and much more dynamic.  The amp makes the...

So, it looks like my hum issue can be somewhat relieved if I upgrade to Vista/7 and configure those settings?

I am using Windows XP, and can't seem to find the settings you described.

Huh, it is interesting how the line-out would sound better with a sound card that heavily advertises its "superb headphone amp" quality.   @germanium Can you guide me through the steps that are needed to change the setting from 16bit to 24bit?

SVN is off, tweaking the mixer volume doesn't get rid of the hum unfortunately.  However changing the sample rate to something other than 44.1KHz does get rid of most of the hum, although there is certainly some left over.

I've been busy with work and haven't been able to check back on this thread.  Fufula, I will take your advice and try that this weekend.  Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

Ok... I just got the new unit from ASUS and I get the same hum.  The SQ does seem to be improved but that's probably because I have a CD playing and not my usual MP3s...  Ugh.. so I guess I need to buy an attenuator

Oh please don't get me wrong.  I just wanted to exploit every possibility before I embarked on the final solution of using an attenuator.  Getting another unit should give us an idea whether the problem is with the sound card or with other noise sources in the computer.  I sincerley apologize if...

Normal gain is considered the low-gain mode as it is the lowest type you can select.  As for trying out higher gain modes, I am reluctant.  On normal gain, I reach comfortable listening levels at volume 1 using IEMs and around 15 using headphones.  Choosing higher gain shows a message saying...

It is...  They are all low impedance models and I've been using the correct settings for those phones (Normal Gain for <64 ohms). I've requested an RMA for the card just in case. 

The one that I  don't really seem to hear the noise is: Sony MDR-V150, some cheap headphone lying around in my dorm room. The ones that I seem to hear noise: Shure SCL-3 IEM and Audio-Technica ATH-M45.

Tried the recording input disabling with no success.  I've tried a full size headphone and don't seem to get the noise.  But then again it does not provide as good noise isolation as the IEM does, so I'm not sure.  And if I recall correctly, I think I heard the noise using a better...