[AUserName501]

"Let's put a very powerful amplifier in a sound card and not give an analogue volume control."
 
I hate this in sound cards. People end up having their volume control at <10% with sensitive headphones and you lose a lot of bit depth. There is also the problems of high output impedance.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

  Hey all, I have the ASrock Extreme6 Z87 using Purity Sound with my Senn HD 560 Ovation II's , Miles Davis Tributes and jesus it sounds amazing. I mostly use the HD 560 II's they're 20 years old now but damn do they sound amazing.
 
I came looking in here because I just now for first time ever plugged them into the rear panel jack and they sound better to me. Maybe I was over driving them on the front jack they are 300ohm but the highs sound much brighter to me on front jack. I think I just maybe had it up to loud or something. But I came looking because there was clearly a difference in what I was hearing, at times the highs were killing me on front jack, but now everything is in perfect balance using rear jack.

The rear jack doesn't use the built-in headphone amp so yea there will be differences and obviously the most noticeable difference is that indeed the front panel jack is brighter so then it will depend what headphone you use what works best. I thought the back panel sounded less dynamic (this is what measurements also will show too) and too laid-back and muffled and the bass response quality was worse (not as tight/punchy and textured) (this is compared to other sources I've tested) while the front panel is slightly on the brighter side comparably. For my Q40 + ZO2.1 amp combo (which is pretty warm sounding) the front panel makes the mids & highs perfect in balance with this gear. Very lively engaging dynamic and detailed sound for onboard and there's no hints whatsoever of "metallic" sounding highs (which there can be with for example the much expensier ZxR) even if it's slightly on the brighter side, I really like the highs & bass response quality out of the front panel, mids aren't bad either, they are neutral sounding in comparison to ZxR for example which is more "romantic" colored in the mids (a bit like comparing an analogue amp vs digital), a bit thicker etc which I personally quite enjoy but the mids on the Realtek sound more neutral though. So while I think mids are very good, the bass and highs is still one notch better still in quality. For hardstyle the bass response quality of this setup is admiring as textured & tight and punchy bass response is extremely important and it fares oh so well in this aspect. The ZxR has worse bass quality with Q40 at least compared to the Realtek onboard, the bass texture is much worse and it's slightly less punchy in favor for boomy.

 

[Headphile32]

I also have Senneiser HD 560 Ovations and they are bright. Much brighter than my HD 580s. They both are 300 ohm and need an amp to sound their best. The back plugin on the ASRock has no amplifier so you are listening to them unamped and not up to their capabilities. I may add that the Ovations also have great detail and will reveal poorly recorded music. One review on Head-fi said they reminded him of Grados.
 
Quote:

  Hey all, I have the ASrock Extreme6 Z87 using Purity Sound with my Senn HD 560 Ovation II's , Miles Davis Tributes and jesus it sounds amazing. I mostly use the HD 560 II's they're 20 years old now but damn do they sound amazing.
 
I came looking in here because I just now for first time ever plugged them into the rear panel jack and they sound better to me. Maybe I was over driving them on the front jack they are 300ohm but the highs sound much brighter to me on front jack. I think I just maybe had it up to loud or something. But I came looking because there was clearly a difference in what I was hearing, at times the highs were killing me on front jack, but now everything is in perfect balance using rear jack.
 
I don't have any noise that I can detect either on my board front or rear jack. And I'm pretty nit picky when it comes to that too so I don't think there is any on my board. I've had mine since July 2013.
 
I really been getting back into listening on headphones because I bought new cable and ear pads(original from Senn) and I always held the sound of them as the best sound I've ever heard. So I went back to listen to everything I own again. Here is video of them, see the ear pads though in pad shape still the replacement ear pads haven't come yet. So I'm sure sound will change some with brand new original pads come.

 

[tan1415]

Guys hope you can help me here.
I got the h87 performance from asrock, but the gigabyte sniper b5 is a whopping 20€ cheaper. Hehe. I am weird...being Big Bang for buck type.
Anyway beside the chip the h87 uses a alc 1150, while the b5 has a alc 898 chip. Mainly 115 vs 110snr.both top end chips.
The b5 has as benefit replaceable opamps.like on the zxr. But now comes the weird bit that has me confused.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4802#kf

If I understand the schematic the opamp doesn't affect all the audio. There are two distinct audio streams.
Chip to opamp to back jack.
Other is chip to headphone amp to front jack.

Meaning changing opamp will not influence sound of headphone amp.
And to fully utilize the opamp I still need to buy a seperate amp.

I can't find any info on this. Also no info which headphone amp gigabyte is using.

 

[tan1415]

"Let's put a very powerful amplifier in a sound card and not give an analogue volume control."

I hate this in sound cards. People end up having their volume control at <10% with sensitive headphones and you lose a lot of bit depth. There is also the problems of high output impedance.

What do you mean?

For my Q40 + ZO2.1 amp combo (which is pretty warm sounding) the front panel makes the mids & highs perfect in balance with this gear.

Aren't you double amp ing here? Headphoneamp and the zo2? Is not better to use zo2 via the back umamped jack?

 

[AUserName501]

Spoiler: Quote: tan1415

What do you mean?
Aren't you double amp ing here? Headphoneamp and the zo2? Is not better to use zo2 via the back umamped jack?

 

 
These sound cards don't have an analogue volume control (potentiometer) and the amplifier inside them is very powerful. The only way to control volume is digitally and you have to adjust the volume to be very low <10% with sensitive headphones. Reducing volume reduces the bit depth and reducing it to much will make an audible impact (at least for 16bit I'm not sure about 24bit though). The second problem is a high output impedance of >20ohms which is too high for many dynamic headphones to stay in the 1/7 general rule where the output impedance of the amplifier is a 1/7 or less than the headphone impedance.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Aren't you double amp ing here? Headphoneamp and the zo2? Is not better to use zo2 via the back umamped jack?

Yes I'm doubleamping basically and ZO is unusual in this case as it's a fully analog amp so therefore it works well even doubleamped, lots of users double amp ZO with for example FiiO E11. ^^ There's no contest, the front panel sounds just waaaaaaay better to my ears with this setup.

 

[tan1415]

I got the H87 fatality performance motherboard fnally installed.
 
At first i pluggd my headphone in teh mic. Quite shocking to hear the crackling and hiss. But once pklugged in audio jack...all dissappeared. Clean and clear. So so much better than my old set up. Really happy with the sound it delivers. I dont have any 600 ohm headphones. but works well with what I have. Can play real loud. My hm5/Fa003 clone sounds great..much louder than my DT770 32 ohm.
 
Blows my GDA003 away. Nice and clear with good bass and highs.
 
A must have if you are upgrading your motherboard to 1050 socket. You are paying a very small premium for this soundupgrade. In teh older sockets...this option comesonly in teh high end  mobo. . Give it a try. I think it will easily equal or outperform the DG/x form asus. Going to a friend soon and give his DG a listen.
 
Quite happy. COnsidering buying a headphone that really needs an amp.

 

[hdtv00]

Yea I'm really torn now , this sounds so good to me. I can't decide if I should get a portable amp/DAC combo like a FiiO of some kind. I use a Nexus 7 original version to playback stuff on the run. But while at home I feel the on board sound now on my board is so good I can't see getting more stuff.
 
I find my quality headphones Senn HD 560 Ovation II's soooo detailed and great I'm not sure I even need a newer HD 600 or HD 650 either. I just don't have tons of experience with newer products to know. But the sound from my 20 yr old HD 560's are the thing I judge all quality sound by for like ever, because it just sounds that great.

 

[tan1415]

  Yea I'm really torn now , this sounds so good to me. I can't decide if I should get a portable amp/DAC combo like a FiiO of some kind. I use a Nexus 7 original version to playback stuff on the run. But while at home I feel the on board sound now on my board is so good I can't see getting more stuff.
 
I find my quality headphones Senn HD 560 Ovation II's soooo detailed and great I'm not sure I even need a newer HD 600 or HD 650 either. I just don't have tons of experience with newer products to know. But the sound from my 20 yr old HD 560's are the thing I judge all quality sound by for like ever, because it just sounds that great.

Thats the same dilemma as me.
Strongly considered the Fiio 17 usb/dac. But with he onboard I am pretty happy so far.
 
So i guess a nice amp is ok for your portable set. Like for example the fiio e11.

 

[Headphile32]

LOL, same dilemma also as I have been tempted to buy a Dragonfly 1.2 or the Modi/Magni combo however I would kick myself if I spent the money and  they did not sound any better. Still may try them out. I do like my Sennheise HD 580 way better than my HD 560 Ovation. I always smile when Steve Guttenberg over at CNET uses the HD 580 to test DAC/Amps.

 

[hdtv00]

Yea god damn it I feel trapped haha. Everyones praise for my HD 560 Ovation II's plus the raves about the Purity Sound on my board I feel like I can't even upgrade the headphones or amp/dac without it being a total crap shoot.
 
I'm in dire need of a head fi meet or something but I don't travel really much so I'm screwed. What to do , what to do....grr.
 
I literally know nothing at all about using a AMP/DAC for pc either. So I just don't know what the hell do learn toward.

 

[tan1415]

I say guys...enjoy what you have for now. Give it a good listemn before considering the next upgrade. Because for us here..its not an if but a when when talking about upgrades right.
 
Right now i am simply enjoying the onboard I have.

 

[Headphile32]

Very True on upgrades However reading this article at Tom's Hardware website which I read a couple of times a month where they did blind testing makes you wonder. I would like to see more of this explored with the 1150 DAC vs a Dragonfly 1.2 or a Geek Dac. This is quite an interesting article:
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

^ For me the problem with blindtesting is that it's very hard to tell if there's a pause in-between but with tests that you can hear instant changes while the song is playing (without pausing it) it's relatively easy, then you notice it. I master on a daily basis and A/B very small differences but since I hear the instant effect taking place switching back n forth it's easy to notice even very small adjustments but yea I'd probably also have issues in blind tests such as the tomshardware one.