[canon007]

I'm starting to feel disappointed that i spent about $360 for some headphones and they don't sound much better than the m50s i had before. What the freak?! For the price I spent I expected to hear an immediate improvement and I was met with underwhelming performance. Sure the headphones look great and are very comfortable but the sound quality isn't up to par with the price tag. This is my first expensive headphones and im quite saddened by this experience. I use an asus essence stx sound card which is enough to power these cans and I found some eq mods that other users claimed to bring their hd700s back to life after some stagnation. Why am I not noticing the difference? I really hope there is a way to make these headphones to reach their full potential. What can I do? Thanks in advance.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I'm starting to feel disappointed that i spent about $360 for some headphones and they don't sound much better than the m50s i had before. What the freak?! For the price I spent I expected to hear an immediate improvement and I was met with underwhelming performance. Sure the headphones look great and are very comfortable but the sound quality isn't up to par with the price tag. This is my first expensive headphones and im quite saddened by this experience. I use an Asus Essence STX sound card which is enough to power these cans and I found some eq mods that other users claimed to bring their hd700s back to life after some stagnation. Why am I not noticing the difference? I really hope there is a way to make these headphones to reach their full potential. What can I do? Thanks in advance.

 
Did you disable the motherboard's on-board audio, in the BIOS, when you installed the STX card?
Have you tried the Unified Xonar Drivers?
http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/
 
Maybe set the STX headphone amplifier for a higher gain?
 
Try playing music using Foobar2000 (w/WASAPI)
http://www.foobar2000.org/

 

[canon007]

Is it the hd audio controller that I should disable? That seems to be the only audio related setting I can manipulate. The gains has already been adjusted to the headphones impedance and I'm not sure what to do with the Unified xonar drivers as well as finding Wasapi.

edit: I disabled the hd audio controller in the bios , installed unified audio driver(already had it apparently) amd played the music on foobar with wasapi. and they dont sound any better than the m50s. How can something that was originally sold for $1000 not be tremendously better than something that is around $100? This is insane, there must be something wrong with the settings, hardware, possible faulty headphones, my hearing or just that the hd700 is no better than the ath m50

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Is it the hd audio controller that I should disable? That seems to be the only audio related setting I can manipulate. The gains has already been adjusted to the headphones impedance and I'm not sure what to do with the Unified Xonar Drivers as well as finding Wasapi.

 
HD Audio Controller is the motherboard's on-board audio, so setting it to Disable will turn off the motherboard's on-board audio.
It's only a small chance active on-board might be effecting the add-on internal sound card (Essence STX).
 
Not 100% sure what "The gains has been adjusted to the headphones impedance" means.
Assume you picked the middle gain setting?
Should be OK if you tried the highest setting, but nothing worng with just using the middle fain setting.
 
The Unified Xonar Drivers can be installed over the Asus drivers.
Unified Xonar Drivers usually get the latest updates, a little sooner then Asus.
(C-Media makes the STX DSP chip and C-Media makes the core software for it).
Also the guy(s) behind Unified Xonar Drivers has more freedom to tweak the drivers.
 
WASAPI is a component add-on to Foobar2000, helps keeps the digital music audio a little (slightly) cleaner, less Windows interference.  
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi
 
Not sure if any of my idea will really help, but they are free for you to try.
 
Might have to invest into something like a nice tube headphone amplifier, to improve on the HD700
Darkvoice 336SE tube amp, $213-$250.
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/dark-voice-366se
 
The Sennheiser HD700 get some mixed reviews, guess they are not for everyone.
You might try reading up and asking on this thread.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/612502/sennheiser-hd-700-impressions-thread