[Saethyan]

Hi everyone! I'm quite new to good audio, as until now i've used mediocre headsets (not headphones) and integrated audio, both on my old PC's and on my laptop. I recently bought a Philips SHP5401, and it sounds amazing for the price, and i mainly use it with my phone, a LG Optimus One, and most of the time on my laptop. Even tho' the laptop is quite new, a Sandy bridge core i7 from Asus it has a very mediocre audio card, the Realtek ALC 269 (i guess this one's on basically every laptop out there since it appeared). On paper the specks are not that bad, with 24 bit audio and up to... ?? khz (i can select up to 192 khz, but i doubt that the card is really that good). The problem is that no matter the driver, many songs no matter the quality, (192-320 kbps mp3's as well as 16 bit, 600-800 kbps flacs) sound worse overall on my laptop than on my phone. I was wondering, is this integrated audio solution any good, and can i get an increase in audio quality (for music) with a usb audio card? What i was considering were the Asus Xonar U3, the Creative X-FI go! and the X-FI go! pro. What info i found so far is this comparative review between asus and the go pro. The final statement that "If you’re trying to directly drive headphones, the high output impedance of the U3 should only be used either with headphones around 200 ohms or higher, or headphones with a very flat impedance that do not require electrical bass damping. The 23 ohm output impedance will cause problems with other headphones" made me think, but a different reviewer from my country mentioned that the asus software has a "hidden" tab that lets u select the output impedance for the device. Would that fix the issues mentioned in the quoted statement? Also is the go pro actually better or worse than the go? it seems worse as it only supports 16 bit audio, as opposed to the 24 bit supported by the old go. Does it have anything extra than EAX 5.0, compared to the 4.0 of the go? I would really like to improve my listening experience on my laptop, but i am on a budget of about 50-60 euros, about 70-80 dollars. Can i get anything better, and can i get it in my country in the mentioned price? I would really appreciate any thoughts, recommendations, or solutions to my audio problem. I will offer feedback on whether i can find in my country (Romania) any of the mentioned devices that anyone will recommend. Thank you very much!

 

[skamp]

No paragraphs, I didn't read.

 

[Qui audit]

No paragraphs, I didn't read.

If you didn't read it then no need to comment. Head-Fi is supposed to be a helpful community. Personally I can't see why a FiiO E17/E10/E7 wouldn't do a brilliant job solving your problem. If you don't mind a peripheral that is.

 

[Saethyan]

Sorry for no paragraphs . I do know about the FiiO, but unfortunately i can't find the brand anywhere in my country, with shipping from an external site it would go way over my budget. Atm I am researching sites in my country for alternatives. I found 3 models that would be in my price range, the BEHRINGER UCA202, the UCA222 and the UFO202. How do they compare to the asus and the creative mentioned above, and how do they compare between themselves? TY!

 

[stv014]

If you are worried about output impedance, then avoid the Behringers, as they tend to have ~50 Ohms, or more. The X-Fi Go should be decent for low impedance headphones (I do not know how the "pro" differs from it).
 

 

[Saethyan]

Sorry to pull back this thread out of nowhere. 
I cannot get any Fiio products in my country at a reasonable price.
So I'm left with 4 options:
1. Buy Asus Xonar U3 (45$)
2. Buy Creative X-Fi Go! (45$) 
3. Buy Creative X-Fi Go! Pro (65$)
4. First 3 won't give better SQ for music, when using headphones (Philips SHP5401) than the integrated Realtek ALC 269 on my laptop, so use the money for something else.
 
Please choose one of the 4

 . Or recommend a 5'th option better than the ones mentioned (but the maximum budget would still be around the price of the X-Fi Go! Pro, so max 65-70$). TYVM!

 

[stv014]

Based on the datasheet only, the Realtek chip is not that bad, but onboard audio is usually poorly implemented in computers, and performs worse that what the datasheet suggests. I have no information on the X-Fi Go! Pro, it may or may not be good. The FiiO E10 would definitely be decent enough without major audio related flaws, but it is slightly above your budget, and is likely an overkill for a headphone like the SHP5401 that costs less than half as much as the E10. The Xonar U3 and X-Fi Go! have been extensively reviewed at the site you linked; these are not quite perfect, but are not bad either. The main issues with the X-Fi are that it rolls off the sub-bass with low impedance headphones, and it is also noisier. On the other hand, the Xonar U3 has relatively high output impedance (maybe still lower than your laptop, motherboard manufacturers like to add 75 Ohm serial resistors to the headphone output), and does not have great treble response.
 

 

[Roller]

Do you plan on gaming? Because that alone makes up for a difference between choosing from the products you listed. Also, never go with the Go! "Pro" as it has an inferior softwre package, lower output formats and has known hardware issues compared to the regular Go!.