[carefullistener]

Whats the best settings for each headphone when using the rear headphone jack?
 
It seems that
 
AHD2000 67-0 OHMs
AKG Q701 300-67 OHMs
HD600 300-67 OHMs
 
This seems to give me the clearest outputs...
 
Exactly how does one use the onboard headphone amplifier on this sound card? You can only pick 3 ranges, how do you pick the ohm value WITHIN that range?
 
The AHD2000 denon seems to have too much Bass and not enough mids...how do I correct this?
 
The akg q701 has too much mids and highs, not enough bass....how do i correct this?
 
The hd600 seems just right at that setting. 

 

[vyyye]

What you're describing with the D2000 is their sound signature. They do have emphasized bass and slightly recessed mids. You could always Eq, there's a good guide if you search for "Equalize neutrality" or something. I never tried it personally but the issue is not the the ST. 

 

[carefullistener]

Quote:

What you're describing with the D2000 is their sound signature. They do have emphasized bass and slightly recessed mids. You could always Eq, there's a good guide if you search for "Equalize neutrality" or something. I never tried it personally but the issue is not the the ST. 

Yes, but I have read that with proper amping...the bass becomes more controlled and the mids come more upfront. While...with poor amping the bass is bloated, while the mids are very recessed. 
 
Could this be an issue I am having?
 
It feels as if the AH-D2000 denons have a veil over them making things sound not as clear as they should be. 

 

[Danthrax]

Did you download the foobar 2000 WASAPI component then enable that? It made my q701s sound better.

 

[carefullistener]

Actually for the xonar stx the best setting would be the ASIO hardware driver. Wasapi loses some of its precision it seems like.
 
I am still getting some poping and cracking when doing a ton of operations at once, but i have upped the latency in foobar2k asio and the driver to 50ms, and it seems to be pretty smooth and sounds amazing.
 
 

 

[Head Injury]

Amping has nothing to do with controlled bass or clearer mid-range. It has to do with distortion, noise, phase, and volume, among other things not related to frequency response. Any good amp should have a flat frequency response. All of these things can contribute to increased clarity, but you hit a ceiling very early on where there are no improvements. I wouldn't believe anything anyone says about vast improvements after amping.
 
The "veil" you describe on the D2000 could be driver resonance caused by the low electrical damping factor of the Denon's low impedance (25 ohms) and the STX's high output impedance (10 ohms). Or it's just the headphones.
 
The gain setting doesn't matter, the ohm values are just recommendations and completely ignore the more important aspect of headphone sensitivity. Use whatever gets you enough volume. The only thing it does is increase volume (technically the low settings reduce voltage). Low gain settings might have less distortion.
 
ASIO and WASAPI should sound exactly the same for playback if they're both set up properly. If you hear a difference, then one of them's not actually working bit-perfect, or you're imagining things (not at all something to be ashamed of when it comes to audio, audiophiles imagine things all the time).