[dwthewhiteness]

Hello all. I recently purchased a pair of HE-500 headphones, and am looking to get the best from them in all my applications. I'm currently setting up my video game systems (Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii U) to my station and in looking at how to connect headphones I've noticed that my console monitor (an LG W2753V) has a headphone output jack. So I've connected my consoles via HDMI for video and then have sound being output through the headphone jack to some headphones.

My concern is this: there is no way that whatever DAC is present in this monitor (a $400 one with no speakers or any other audio capabilities) is at all on par with the ones that exist in my consoles. I am also worried that Dolby or DTS encoding or whatever gives positional cues won't be rendered by the monitor when it decodes the signal to send to the headphones. Maybe I'm wrong and the monitor's DAC is perfectly fine, that's why I'm here to ask all of you.

SHould I stay away from the monitor and connect the headphones directly to the consoles' audio outs (after going to an amp, of course), or am I fine with staying hooked up.to the monitor? Is there any disadvantage of degradation of quality that I'm incurring my going through the monitor rather than the consoles directly? Thanks for the help!

 

[dwthewhiteness]

I almost forgot to mention that my third option is to run optical from each console into the optical-in on my sound card on my PC using an optical switch box, and then run the headphones directly out from the sound card, since it already has a nice headphone amp built in.

 

[Jmstrmbn]

I think you answered your own question, using optical to your PC sound card will definitely be preferable to going through a monitor.

 

[dwthewhiteness]

Will it be? That's why I'm asking, I wasn't sure if the sound would be best either coming directly from the console or by going to the sound card first

 

[Jmstrmbn]

I would assume that the DAC in the monitor is sub-par, but seeing as you have both options, give both a try and go with what you find best.  I live in a dorm (I'm a college student) and I run my xbox sound through hdmi to the headphone out of the tv to a small set of bookshelf speakers.  It is definitely not hi-fi, but it is convenient and any serious listening I do I use my headphones.  
 
Hope this helps
 
John

 

[dwthewhiteness]

Bumping for other opinions.

 

[uncola]

You could get a headphone amp that has optical in. that SMSL 793II on ebay is super cheap. unsure about reliability though