[PaulzY]

Hi, I've been reading through this forum on and on and off basis for a while now and been wanting a good pair of headphones for a long time now. Recently I have discovered the ATH-A900 which seems to be the first allrounder mid-range headphone that doesn't require an amp that I can also afford, and it looks cool as well so im pretty sold on this.

But now through more reading it appears that I really should upgrade my source too, which atm is a TB SantaCruz (all listening done on computer). The sound card to have seems to be the E-MU 1212m. If I was to stretch my budget and get this card aswell, could I get away with using some cheap adaptor to go dual 1/4" TS mono to one 1/8" stereo female, or if i couldnt find one like that then use a dual 1/4" TS mono to one 1/4" female, and use the stereo adaptor that comes with the phones to finally connect them without suffering in audio quality too much?

And will this combination work good without an amp? on the unofficial E-MU forum I read the this card is a bit quieter than others and should be used with an amp, but given the A900s impedence it should still be okay right? I understand as always an amp would make things better, but I don't want to have to factor in the cost of an amp right now as well as that will just further complicate my decisions.


so in short unmodded emu1212m + cheap messy connections + A900 now and then later in a year or so if i decide to upgrade to an amp, i can get some good RCA cables to replace the cheap connections. So will this blow my mind or not?

Thanks.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Sounds like a good plan to me, Sduibek, whose EMU I currently have was using it successfully unamped with his CD3000 to very good results, so you should be fine with the A900's, and then when you can afford an amp it will likely sound even better.