[Norn]

Hi all,

First of all, sorry for my english !

With this forum I've found a new world of headphone. And I've a lot of questions

:

* I don't have a stereo amp, nor a portable cd player, so I listen to music (95% metal music) with my pc. For now, I've an audigy 2 ZS soundcard (for gaming too) and a crap headphone

. So, to reach a good quality I use EAC to store my cd in a lossless format (Monkey Audio APE).

* In order to have good quality, I 'll buy a new headphone, but which ? As I've read, most of the good heaphones have an impedance > 50 ohms, so it's recommended to have an amp to provide a strong signal. But I've read too that you can find some headphones in 32 ohms, so they can be used directly with the pc. Is there a real difference between i.e a DT 880 in 32 ohms and a DT 880 in 250 ohms ? Furthermore, an internal soundcard isn't, as I've read, the best solution for listening music. It's better to have an external soundcard (or a DAC), but once again, which soundcard (or DAC) ?

* To finish here is a draw of my interrogation

Usage : gaming & music
Budget : 700 $ (600 €)

Audigy 2 ZS -> headphone (32 ohms like the DT 880) ?
Audigy 2 ZS -> headphone amp -> headpone (> 50 ohms) ?
DAC or pro soundcard -> headphone (32 ohms or higher) ?
DAC or pro soundcard -> amp headphone -> headphone (> 50 ohms) ?

Thx for your (future) answers !

Norn

 

[Comrade Penguin]

Hi Norn. It is customary here to say "Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about you wallet." I however am going to make an attempt to save you a bit. From you post I'm guessing you don't have too much experience with hi-fi, headphones or otherwise. As such I wouldn't invest the amount you have listed straight away. I would instead buy something cheaper such as a Koss KSC-35/75 or a Sennheiser PX-100. This way you can get a taste of what good headphone sounds like. If you enjoy them but still find something missing then you can carry on and spend the kind of cash your talking about, however you might find these are good enough for you and can sit happily knowing you've saved around $680. These headphones will give you a lot of what even the most expensive headphone will give you, it's just a matter of where your point of price verses gain in sound quality is. For some people that is $20 with an excellent Koss Clip-on for others it lies in the thousands of dollars with some extraordinary electrostatic system. You have to find where your point is and the best way to do that is start from the bottom up because the further you go up the less gains are.

 

[Comfy]

You should try a pair of KOSS KSC-75s first.

But IF you want to start spending your hard-earned money, then I'd suggest a Corda Aria DAC/Amp from Meier Audio, and a pair of nice headphones. For gaming I'm assuming you'd need the bass and the soundstage, aswell as a non-fatiguing presentation. So some top end Sennheisers might be nice (HD-595, HD-600 or HD-650).

Other headphones to consider: Beyerdynamic DT-770 for awesome bass, AKG K 701 for soundstage, Grado SR-225 and SR-335 for rock music.

You could also get yourself a separate DAC + separate amp + headphones rig with that money.

And BTW, some internal soundcards are really good budget sources for music listening. Like the E-MU 0404 for example. At about 100$ it produces really nice sound quality when using ASIO.

Another thing people usually say to new Head-fiers: use the search-function.

 

[Norn]

Well thanks for your answers guys

I really want to enter the kingdom of "high fidelity" headphones

So I'll search reviews of the DT-770, AKG K 701, & Grado SR-225 and SR-335 (but there are really expensive in Europe

).

 

[Comfy]

Out of those, only the Grados are expensive in Europe. AKG, Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic are European companies.
You could replace those Grados for Alessandro MS-2s. Alessandro ships to Europe. Grados cannot be shipped to Europe, and European prices are superexpensive. (The Alessandros are actually Grados under a different brandname, and MS-2 is pretty much the same as Grado SR-325i, except maybe a little more neutral sounding.)

You should also check out the Head-Fi special offer on Sennheiser HD-600 at Meier Audio (the same ones of the Corda Aria) right now. Very cheap, but only a few left.

You could get yourself a Corda Aria and Sennheiser HD-600s for 610 euros.
http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/index.htm