[eMpAtHy]

anyone know if the 271's will sound good without an amp on a audigy 1? is the audigy even a good soundcard?? i havn't been able to test other soundcards but this is the one i currently have. i'm looking at picking up the 271's and i dont know if ill be needing an amp for these headphones with this soundcard..if anyone knows if it will sound better or anything please let me know

 

[eMpAtHy]

bump..

also how much better do the akg's sound with the equinox cables?

 

[raif]

I wouldn't suggest it. I have the akg 271s and the audigy 2 zs. The sound is not very good straight out of the headphone out, however, my only amp is the integrated one in my benchmark dac1, so that probably isn't a very fair comparison. These phone do need good amplification to not sound dull.

 

[commando]

I've tried:

flac -> sonica -> pimeta -> AKG 271
flac -> pc onboard cheap sound (ibm netvista) -> akg 271

And I can't hear any difference between them. I don't know if you can generalise or not, but some others agree with me that the 271s don't improve much or at all with amplification.

 

[eMpAtHy]

is there a better sounding soundcard other than the audigy 1..that has quite a bit of difference or no?

 

[Jasper994]

uh yeah, almost everything sounds better than an audigy 1, I have one and it sucks (except for gaming). I'm very happy with my M-Audio Audiophile USB for music. I've left the Audigy in for when I want to do some gaming. They work fine together.