[NoOneLt]

  So as long as the song sounds clear in High Gain mode, the headphones should be ok I presume? I am not hearing any distortion or bottoming out when I play both Senn HD 700 and Shure 1540 in High Gain mode...

Both your headphones takes a lot of mW and ZxR seems to output this values witch are pretty low, so it won't damage your HP:
 
Headphone Out (32/33 ohms) : 70mW(normal gain), 275mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (300 ohms) : 32mW(normal gain), 112mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (600 ohms) : 18mW(normal gain), 64mW(high gain)
 
Values found here and i can't tell they are 100% correct but seems more or less legit.

 

[germanium]

  Both your headphones takes a lot of mW and ZxR seems to output this values witch are pretty low, so it won't damage your HP:
 
Headphone Out (32/33 ohms) : 70mW(normal gain), 275mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (300 ohms) : 32mW(normal gain), 112mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (600 ohms) : 18mW(normal gain), 64mW(high gain)
 
Values found here and i can't tell they are 100% correct but seems more or less legit.

While the ZXR MAY not be able to damage them power wise at high volume I can assure that they will damage some headphones with excessive long term excursion in the bass. I have damaged headphones that way. This I did to some Grado headphones which only lasted a few months under said treatment. These were open headphones which leaked a lot of bass out the ear pads so they had to make up for that by providing extra excursion. This excursion eventually breaks the fine wire leading to the voice coil. I fell asleep with them on & playing & during sleep they would come off & as such the driver would become unloaded which would raise the excursion even more. This was at comfortable listening volumes which is why I no longer buy Grado headphones. This happened with several Grado phones I have owned. 
 
Bear in mind that power ratings of speakers & headphones are in no way saying that they can handle that kind of power continuously. Those are peak levels that they can handle with wide dynamic recordings such as classical & most jazz, not highly compressed rock recordings. Same goes for a car engine, they won't last very long if run continuously at max power, not even diesel truck engines will even though they can handle max power far longer than a car engine.

 

[CyberAthlete]

Both your headphones takes a lot of mW and ZxR seems to output this values witch are pretty low, so it won't damage your HP:

Headphone Out (32/33 ohms) : 70mW(normal gain), 275mW(high gain)

Headphone Out (300 ohms) : 32mW(normal gain), 112mW(high gain)

Headphone Out (600 ohms) : 18mW(normal gain), 64mW(high gain)

Values found here and i can't tell they are 100% correct but seems more or less legit.

Makes sense. I only got higher volumes at high gain. Should've tried it sooner. Wasn't sure what to expect. I've set my pc volume at 80% and the high gain drives the rest. Thx.

 

[NoOneLt]

  Bear in mind that power ratings of speakers & headphones are in no way saying that they can handle that kind of power continuously. Those are peak levels that they can handle with wide dynamic recordings such as classical & most jazz, not highly compressed rock recordings. Same goes for a car engine, they won't last very long if run continuously at max power, not even diesel truck engines will even though they can handle max power far longer than a car engine.

Hi, could you clear thing a bit, HD700 says to be "Max. nominal long-term input power 500 mW " @150 Ohm, so as i understand ZxR could give them max ~240 mW? And they should be 100% safe with ZxR at any volume?
 
And Shure SRH1540 says only about max. input 1000mW, here i believe is the case when they could live it for some ms at 1000 mW peaks? But @46 Ohm ZxR should also be ~240 mW max is there still possible damage here? Except ear bleeding?
 
Or in this case we should ask manufacturer for more details? I would like to understand this better.. Because if someone picks headphones to pair with something then it is good to know..

 

[germanium]

  Hi, could you clear thing a bit, HD700 says to be "Max. nominal long-term input power 500 mW " @150 Ohm, so as i understand ZxR could give them max ~240 mW? And they should be 100% safe with ZxR at any volume?
 
And Shure SRH1540 says only about max. input 1000mW, here i believe is the case when they could live it for some ms at 1000 mW peaks? But @46 Ohm ZxR should also be ~240 mW max is there still possible damage here? Except ear bleeding?
 
Or in this case we should ask manufacturer for more details? I would like to understand this better.. Because if someone picks headphones to pair with something then it is good to know..

It's not the power so much as the bass frequency excursion, especially on the low impedance phones. Mid band they could probably handle that much

 

[bcschmerker4]

  Both your headphones takes a lot of mW and ZxR seems to output this values witch are pretty low, so it won't damage your HP:
 
Headphone Out (32/33 ohms) : 70mW(normal gain), 275mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (300 ohms) : 32mW(normal gain), 112mW(high gain)
Headphone Out (600 ohms) : 18mW(normal gain), 64mW(high gain)
 
Values found here and i can't tell they are 100% correct but seems more or less legit.

In which case, anybody tested piezoelectric cans with these high-output Sound Blaster® cards?  I can't justify exposing dynamic headphones, even the 600+ ohm variety, to such power continuously; the transducer voice coils would burn out in no time under the abuse the Creative Laboratories® SB1500 and SB1506 would dish out at default headphone volume.

 

[cheeno50]

soooooo. whats the sweet spot settings for surround with high end headphones? For music obviously

 

[NoOneLt]

Obviously off.. for stereo recordings.

 

[skyhakuu]

Hi.
I buy one krk generation 3 powered 5 and is working good on my zxr, by RCA.
I want to buy a SUB now,  how i do that ?  i just plug the sub in the p2 on zxr ? or i need to buy one central speaker too ?
thanks;

 

[nicholascroth]

Hey guys, I was wondering about my idea for a desktop setup. I have the Sound Blaster Zx, and I was wondering, if I were to purchase a Schiit Asgard 2 or Valhalla 2 to power a pair of Sennheiser HD 700s, would it be a bad idea to just plug the amp into my sound card? Would you recommend I purchase a separate DAC for the Senns? Basically, I'm asking if the DAC in the Zx is sufficient for the Sennheiser 700s.
 
Thanks

 

[skyhakuu]

  Hey guys, I was wondering about my idea for a desktop setup. I have the Sound Blaster Zx, and I was wondering, if I were to purchase a Schiit Asgard 2 or Valhalla 2 to power a pair of Sennheiser HD 700s, would it be a bad idea to just plug the amp into my sound card? Would you recommend I purchase a separate DAC for the Senns? Basically, I'm asking if the DAC in the Zx is sufficient for the Sennheiser 700s.
 
Thanks

 
 
yah its OK, the DAC on zx its pretty decent one.

 

[CZ Eddie]

Folks,
I have the Sound Blaster Z sound card outputting via 3.5mm audio to Miccus TX4 APTx Bluetooth transmitter to Avantree Saturn APTx Bluetooth Receiver to FiiO E6 Headphone Amplifier to Yamaha PRO 500 Headphones.
My computer is a Dell XPS 8700 i7 (mid-hi end specs).  And I'm VERY unhappy with the audio quality.  At least, I'm unhappy whenever the computer volume is pushed past 25%.  The sound quality becomes heavily distorted.  If computer volume is set to 25% or lower, then audio sounds decent.
Any suggestions on how to set this up to work better?
 
I had the same issue with my last computer and last Win7x64 OS install.  
All drivers are updated.
I've used various media players like Zoom, Windows player, MCE-HC, etc.

 

[germanium]

  Folks,
I have the Sound Blaster Z sound card outputting via 3.5mm audio to Miccus TX4 APTx Bluetooth transmitter to Avantree Saturn APTx Bluetooth Receiver to FiiO E6 Headphone Amplifier to Yamaha PRO 500 Headphones.
My computer is a Dell XPS 8700 i7 (mid-hi end specs).  And I'm VERY unhappy with the audio quality.  At least, I'm unhappy whenever the computer volume is pushed past 25%.  The sound quality becomes heavily distorted.  If computer volume is set to 25% or lower, then audio sounds decent.
Any suggestions on how to set this up to work better?
 
I had the same issue with my last computer and last Win7x64 OS install.  
All drivers are updated.
I've used various media players like Zoom, Windows player, MCE-HC, etc.

 
 
Sounds like the Bluetooth device in question has a very low overload threshold. Sound like you are driving it from the analog output & the input of the blue tooth device is overloading @ less than 1 volt input. I would look at trying a different Bluetooth device. Looked up both Bluetooth devices & both give insufficient spec to determine anything about input sensitivity or max input.

 

[gmaister22]

 the ZXR is worth purchasing? I'm thinking adding some Audioengine A2+ speakers to it and as for headphones, the sennheiser hd 588
 
 
what do you guys think?

 

[skyhakuu]

the best sound card u can buy now.
and its perfect for one 558