[jlw]

Hello!
For a few weeks I bought myself a new pair of headphones. >>> Beyerdynamic DT531 <<<. Great value of money. My first pair of Real headphones. Sounds great! Have only used them to listen to digital music and games. Bought them in Sweden får 995 swedish krones. ( No to enter EMU *smile*) Its about aprox 12$ I think.

But I want Better sound! Have look around for headphone amplifiers and find then maybe to be a good investment.

Some questions.

- I only use headphones to my computer, got a sound blaster live soundcard. Will the amplifier work great with the card? Will I lose "effect"? I dont play very hight music. Only sometimes.

Need I to upgrade my soundblaster to Audigy2?

- I can get hand on these amplifiers
Pro-Ject Head Box <- Ugly looking, but its maybe good?

Rega Ear <- Looks great, but is it worth all the money. Is it good?
Musical Fidelity XCANV2 <- Abit for expensive for me!

- Can i change the cord on my dt531?


Have a nice day everyone...
Regards from Sweden.

/ Viking.

 

[lini]

jlw: I've got the HeadBox myself, and I can only recommend to avoid it (for more, try the search function!). For the sonic results, it's ridiculously overpriced - even a PortaCorda (version 1) totally smokes it. I can't comment on the other two amps, as I only own a few more Cordas and have neither heard the Rega, nor the MF, but I'd recommend a different route: Instead of coupling the mediocre SB Live with a headphone amp, I'd exchange the SB Live with a Terratec Aureon 5.1 Sky instead. Thereby you get a nice new soundcard that both avoids resampling artifacts and has a nice little headphone amp already integrated on the board for ~ 100 Euro.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Snufkin]

I use my DT531 from my computer via a Creek OBH-21 amp and it's quite a nice combo

The Rega EAR will give more power and a little extra bass, but it's a fairly noisy/grainy sounding amp IMHO, although it could be the PSU? I'm not sure (I use the OBH-2 PSU with the Creek).

You can definately change the cord on the DT531, I've never done it myself but I can see how it could be done. There's some nice Mogami cable that would be perfect for the job

 

[jlw]

No. Cant change my live! Will upgrade it to a Audigy2 someday. I play games sometime and want kickass sound in the games as well.

Corius about using 2 soundcards at the same time. Anyone tryd that?

Primary: audigy2
Secondary: Audiophile 2496 (http://m-audio.com/products/m-audio/audiophile.php)

Is the Audiophile 2496a good card? Maybe I should forget the audigy 2 and use a Audiophile 2496 to game and such things? Whats the negativs using Audiophile 2496 while gaming? I dont care about 5 fps drop.

The Audiophile 2496 and a headphone AMP.... MMMM. Sound Nice!