[No Smoking]

Hi, I was hoping you guys could help me with a few of my questions.
I am planning on buying a pair of Denon D2000s and possibly a zero headphone amp, currently I'm using onboard sound from my motherboard Gigabyte P35C-DS3R which has the ALC889A Audio controller which has an optical and S/PDIF out. If I was to connect the zero to my computer using either the optical or S/PDIF do you know if my computer would pass a clean signal and would there be any settings or particular drivers I would need for this?
Also more of an opinions question but do you think the zero would be a big improvement to the current amp I have which is a 70s Sanyo stereo amplifier.

 

[olblueyez]

Yes it will be a clean signal especially if you use optical. You want to install and use Foobar and some form of ASIO, many threads on Head-Fi about those. Wouldnt bet my life on it but a dedicated headphone amp like that should be much better at driving your headphones.