I had a question about this card in general.
I am interested in the fact that this card does have the separate headphone output. Although, I am wondering if this allows the card to drive the headphones at the same time as another audio stream? For example, could I run 5.1 audio on my speakers AND have it also playing as stereo in the headphones? This would be super helpful in the fact that you wouldn't have to adjust audio settings, volume, or plug in cords each time you want to switch to the headphones. Similar question; could I use the digital audio for the speakers and then also use the headphones at the same time? My perfect card would let me plug in my speakers as multi-channel PCM over digital so that it would work just like the analog outs, AND also drive the headphones in stereo. (I switch between headphones as speakers often since I live in a dorm room and have to appease the room-mate when he's around) I have not used X-Fi cards in the past, so not sure how they handle this sort of thing. (I know my onboard does this simply fantastically... but that is onboard)
I currently have an HT Omega Striker 7.1, although am having some issues. For one, volume levels seems messed up for analog surround outputs. The tech-support admitted the problem and are looking into it. This forces me to use Digital. Although, when using the digital, any time I play a movie in surround, it has to use S-pidf passthrough which jams up players like foobar and forces me to restart them. This is a huge annoyance. Also having some issues with interference sounds coming from certain things such as scrolling and minimizing windows, etc. Probably EMI.
Another question, which has been asked already previously, although I would kind of like clarification. I have an M3 headphone amp which I really do love. I more or less would just want this card for the dedicated headphone output (IF it can also drive the speakers synonymously) Would it be horrible to use the amped headphone output from this card to go into my M3 headphone amp?
Thanks guys.