[TwelveTrains]

Actually I think I have changed my mind and am going with either the Schiit Magni or Schiit Asgard, thanks Honkytime. Then I can take advantage of the CCSM-3D headphone for gaming. Will I be disadvantaged in the music listening department because I won't have a proper DAC like the Modi/Bifrost? Or is the DAC in my X-Fi Titanium not so shabby?

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

Actually I think I have changed my mind and am going with either the Schiit Magni or Schiit Asgard, thanks Honkytime. Then I can take advantage of the CCSM-3D headphone for gaming. Will I be disadvantaged in the music listening department because I won't have a proper DAC like the Modi/Bifrost? Or is the DAC in my X-Fi Titanium not so shabby?

You'll get some mixed opinions on this, but the DAC on the titanium is good. IMO any upgrade you're going to make from it isn't going to be worth the money you'd be spending. DACs are a pretty simple thing to make flawlessly(within the human hearing range) nowadays.
 
CSM3-CD is pretty great though, I don't play a game without it anymore.

 

[TwelveTrains]

Hey it looks like you have very similar stuff to what I am looking at getting (X-Fi CCSM-3D running through the Asgard) plus your musical interests seem kinda similar. Could I ask you a couple questions? Do you use a bitperfect driver or directsound? And what bitrate or lossless format do you have the majority of?

 

[chewy4]

I just use direct sound. I usually use Winamp for my player but I'd switch in a heartbeat if I found one with a better interface and an equally good visualizer.
 
No bitrate takes the majority of my files. But for a rough estimate about 1/3 are lossless(FLAC), a little less than 1/4 are 128kbps or less, and the rest are everything in between. Lossy stuff is mostly mp3 but there is some AAC there.

 

[Honkytime]

Quote:

Actually I think I have changed my mind and am going with either the Schiit Magni or Schiit Asgard, thanks Honkytime. Then I can take advantage of the CCSM-3D headphone for gaming. Will I be disadvantaged in the music listening department because I won't have a proper DAC like the Modi/Bifrost? Or is the DAC in my X-Fi Titanium not so shabby?

the CCSM-3D does not require an aftermarket amps to work, it will work fine threw the regular headphone jack on your sound card and from my understanding the DAC on the titanium is as good or better than the one on the modi.

 

[TwelveTrains]

Ah yes, now I don't feel so bad for having lossy files. What is your windows sampling rate set to?

 

[TwelveTrains]

Quote:

the CCSM-3D does not require an aftermarket amps to work, it will work fine threw the regular headphone jack on your sound card and from my understanding the DAC on the titanium is as good or better than the one on the modi.

 
Yeah the amp doesn't cut it right now for my Beyer's. Or my possible future Sennheiser HD650's. Plus I am now leaning towards the Bifrost so I can send the Titanium X-Fi's stereo mix out to it via S/PDIF optical. And then have good music playback with stereo mix unchecked and CCSM-3D off.

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

Ah yes, now I don't feel so bad for having lossy files. What is your windows sampling rate set to?

44.1kHz usually. I find that most media players have aliasing when Windows is set to 48kHz or greater. If you're using something like Wasapi exclusive mode this isn't a problem, but I don't like locking up the sound to use a media player and all my files are at 44.1kHz anyways.

 

[TwelveTrains]

I am in the same boat right now. I've noticed the Titanium HD has "Top quality current output Burr-Brown Advanced Segment PCM1794A DAC", but the regular X-Fi Titanium's DAC is unspecified http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_X-Fi#X-Fi_Xtreme_Audio.  How do I know it is a quality DAC if it's not listed anywhere?

 

[Honkytime]

i seem to always forget we talking titanium non HD

 

[Honkytime]

found some info for you the DAC on the non HD titanium is a Cirrus Logic CS4382

 

[TwelveTrains]

Oh hey thank you so much!

 

[peck1234]

DAC on the Titanium HD is outstanding.  
I recently starting using foobar with WASAPI "exlusive mode" (bit-perfect)  and must say the detail level has increased.  Make sure to set your conrol panel on the right settings.