dac + amp to replace soundcard

[MetalChameau]

Hello, and sorry for my very bad English, I'm French. Also sorry if my questions might look dumb, I have never owned an external amp or dac and I don't know much about it.

I own a Fidelio x2, a mmx 300 (Which is a dt 770 32 ohms), and a Status C-B1, and I will probably get other headphones in the future. (I have tested a dt 1990 and I loved it, I might buy it, and there are also a lot of headphones that I'd like to try, like the hd 600)
I play a lot of videogames and I also listen to a lot of music. It's 50/50.

So, I'd like to get a dac and an amp to replace my soundblaster zx. From what I've seen on forums there are some people who say that there is no difference it term of sound quality between a dac/amp and a soundcard, and there are also a lot of people that disagree with that.
There are also some people who say that dac/amp isn't great for gaming and that a soundcard is better, while other people don't seem to care.
Like for instance from what I've seen soundcards are better because they have dobly or surround functionalities that allow them to be more efficient for gaming. On my SoundBlaster I have Surround or Scout Mode but I never use this crap because it destroys the sound quality to my ears, also it doesn't improve anything in term of imaging.
The only thing that I use is the surround 5.1 on Windows instead of stereo. And maybe with a dac and amp enabling 5.1 on Windows would be impossible ? I truly don't know lol

So in the end I don't know what to think of all of this and I suppose that the best way to figure out the "truth" is to test it myself.
But the thing is, I don't know anything about this kind of stuff, so I don't know what to buy.

All I know is that I need an amp with a dac. Also I need an optical port to plug-in my Xbox One or any console that I might buy in the future (I was already able to run the sound of my Xbox One through my soundcard and get the sound on my pc).
Actually I wonder if it's possible to send the sound from my soundcard to the dac through the optical port ? Then that means that I would keep both my soundcard and the dac and amp.
Anyway if somebody could explain how all of this works that would be awesome lol. Again sorry if my questions look dumb.

Thx a lot !

 

[canthearyou]

Try a Creative SoundBlaster G5 plugged into a USB port. Or grab a Schiit Modi and Magni stack and use the optical out from your current sound card.

Two cheap options to get you started.

 

[MetalChameau]

Yeah I've seen the Schiit Modi and Magni stack but I can't buy them in France :c

Also I'd like to have something that is better than my soundcard in term of sound quality, and even if it's not that cheap it's not an issue. For instance 300 euros for the dac and amp or even a little bit more if it's worth

I'll keep looking for the modi and magni though, but from what I've seen it's not available for France

Thx btw

 

[cossix]

Yeah I've seen the Schiit Modi and Magni stack but I can't buy them in France :c

Also I'd like to have something that is better than my soundcard in term of sound quality, and even if it's not that cheap it's not an issue. For instance 300 euros for the dac and amp or even a little bit more if it's worth

I'll keep looking for the modi and magni though, but from what I've seen it's not available for France

Thx btw

You'd need the Modi 2 Uber, the normal one has no optical! Sorry to hear you can get them in France, not even from secondhand auction websites?

 

[MetalChameau]

If possible I'd like to order it on Amazon, in case I need to return the product, at least I'm sure to be safe there

But maybe you guys know of anything that is equivalent to this combo ?

 

[MetalChameau]

https://schiit.eu.com/modi-2-uber
https://schiit.eu.com/headphone-amps/magni-3

But basically if I had to order there that's what I would need right ?

 

[canthearyou]

https://schiit.eu.com/modi-2-uber
https://schiit.eu.com/headphone-amps/magni-3

But basically if I had to order there that's what I would need right ?

Yes

 

[MetalChameau]

Okay thx, I'm gonna check out what is available on Amazon, if I can't find anything I will order this, hopefully it will sound better than my soundcard lol

thx again guys

 

[PurpleAngel]

Okay thx, I'm gonna check out what is available on Amazon, if I can't find anything I will order this, hopefully it will sound better than my soundcard lol
thx again guys

Guess you do not like the SBX Headphone surround sound that comes with the SB-Zx card (which is fine).
But the SB-Zx does make a fairly good DAC, so you might look into getting a headphone amplifer, to connect to the Front Speaker output, on the SB-Zx.
if your going to buy higher impedance (Ohm) headphones, like the 250-Ohm DT1990 or 300-Ohm HD600, then check out the Darkvoice 336SE OTL tube headphone amplifier.

 

[MetalChameau]

Well it's not that I don't like my soundcard, I like it, but I'd like to get better sound quality especially for music. For gaming it's perfectly fine though, as long as I don't enable this crap surround or scout mod thing lol

That's why I want to try out the dac + amp, I'm new to the audiophile world and I just want to test out new things because I'm curious

And I've also tried a dt 1990 on my soundcard and it ran pretty well, the sound was already quite high, plus using an amp (336se otl) with another amp (SB-Zx) is messed up no ?

 

[cossix]

And I've also tried a dt 1990 on my soundcard and it ran pretty well, the sound was already quite high, plus using an amp (336se otl) with another amp (SB-Zx) is messed up no ?

You won't want to double amp the signal, especially if your sound card is having issues because that'll just make it worse. Luckily you can always try an external stack or combo unit and keep your sound card in case you don't find the new gear to be worth the money. But essentially you will either use all of the soundcard or none of it

 

[PurpleAngel]

Well it's not that I don't like my sound card, I like it, but I'd like to get better sound quality especially for music. For gaming it's perfectly fine though, as long as I don't enable this crap surround or scout mod thing lol
That's why I want to try out the dac + amp, I'm new to the audiophile world and I just want to test out new things because I'm curious
And I've also tried a dt 1990 on my sound card and it ran pretty well, the sound was already quite high, plus using an amp (336se otl) with another amp (SB-Zx) is messed up no ?

The SB-Zx's Front Speaker jack is not an amplified jack, just a line-output jack, so connecting a headphone amplifier to the Front speaker jack is not double amping.
if you connected an amplifier to the SB-Zx's headphone jack, that would be double amping.

 

[MetalChameau]

Oh ok, thx ! So no amp on another amp lol

But just one last thing the spdif doesn't make any difference if it comes from the soundcard or from the onboard audio chipset of the motherboard right ? So for instance I could use the SPDIF from my motherboard to connect it to a dac/amp and the sound quality would be the same as the combo spdif soundcard + dac/amp ? (I hope it makes sense lol, my English is crap, sorry)

 

[MetalChameau]

The SB-Zx's Front Speaker jack is not an amplified jack, just a line-output jack, so connecting a headphone amplifier to the Front speaker jack is not double amping.
if you connected an amplifier to the SB-Zx's headphone jack, that would be double amping.

Oh ok I didn't even know that thx
So basically it's like this then ? :

https://i.gyazo.com/6daeeb99d8f18c3ae37f059a1f0b0e54.png

 

[PurpleAngel]

Oh ok, thx ! So no amp on another amp lol

But just one last thing the s/pdif doesn't make any difference if it comes from the sound card or from the on-board audio chipset of the motherboard right ? So for instance I could use the SPDIF from my motherboard to connect it to a dac/amp and the sound quality would be the same as the combo s/pdif sound card + dac/amp ? (I hope it makes sense lol, my English is crap, sorry)

Yea, both optical jacks (motherboard or add-on sound card) would offer the same audio quality.