Asus XONAR DG CMI8786 Sound Card

I had this card for a while and it did a decent job powering my AKG K550's and my Ultrasone 650Pros. I could always tell there was more to be had from them though. The sound was good but a tad muddy on the bass end and a tad clipped on the high end. 
 
After 6 months I got static output from the front panel and had to unplug it. After 10 months of ownership the card would output high pitched hissing noises at all times through headphones or speakers. 
 
I cannot recommend this card with the time it lasted me
 
Replaced it with a Creative Sound Blaster Z and I am highly impressed with how much better it is. 

I bought this because i needed an AMP for my superlux hd681 headphones, so I bought this card because it was on my budget.
I am really happy with it and with it's sound, and i could not switch back to my old onboard sound, which was best on the market, but pathetic in comparison with this.
It is driving my headphones very well, and very loud. I never played my headphones on something better, so I can't make any comparison when talking about sound quality.
There is a bit of a problems, the original drivers suck, but fixed with alternative called UNi Xonar. The card isn't isolated, so it can make noise if interfered with other components such as graphic card. I needed to move my card away from the graphic card because it made a noise when any kind of sound would start to play.

This card is 25-30 usd only which is very inexpensive, and it is a noticeable improvement over my realtek 892 onboard sound, I only have some cheap Plantronics Gamecom 367, which sounded boring with the onboard sound, but after setting up the card they sounded more transparent and alive (for a 30usd headset). This card will work nicely with ANY gaming headSET and some EQ tweaking, I've tested it with siberia v2's and they sound better than the usb soundcard, a razer carcharias sounded better too.
 
The only major problem with this card are the drivers, this card is NOT easy to setup, if you buy this card it is normal if you don't notice any improvement at first, but you need to know how to set it up correctly, first of all throw away that garbage driver cd, and download the latest updated drivers form here: http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/ ASUS site drivers are garbage too.
 
This drivers will work for any asus xonar card and some auzentech too, try installing the cmedia panel version without gx enabled, you shouldn't use gx (or xear 3d) because it is just a buggy feature, it made some of my games crash, then you need to set your windows sound output to 24bit/44100hz and then disable all the features on the card. You can use the headphone amplification and EQ features since they improve your experience, try to control the volume from windows and move the headset cable volume control to maximum, that improves SQ and finally NEVER use or connect front panel audio, front panel connections on pc cases are normally very bad quality, use extensions and connect your headset directly on your card.
 
You can try different configurations and see whats best for your headset and audio needs, for example, if you like dolby headphone use it, I personally never use it because it just ruins music and in games removes the sense of distance since it normalizes the volume, and that's not good for cs global offensive.
 
This card will work nicely with ANY decent gaming headset,the best headset I have used is the corsair vengeance 1300, but you can use creative tactic 3d sigma, razer carcharias, razer kraken, steelseries siberia v2, steelseries 5h, logitech g230, but those are gaming headsets, if you want high sound quality try beyerdynamic dtx 910, sennheiser hd 4x9, akg k240 studio or audiotechnica ad500x with the zalman clip on mic, that will get you the best results.