Headphone amp with digital in?
Jul 19, 2005 at 12:36 PM Post #16 of 33
The AOS Flute would be perfect, but he no longer makes them and there are only ~5 in circulation... and I just sold mine.
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Jul 19, 2005 at 1:22 PM Post #17 of 33
Thanks for all your help.....

Its a shame that only that many of the AOS flutes are around
frown.gif


I think I have pretty much narrowed it down to the ART DI/O or the Number Crunchers 203.2. I can get both for about the same price ($100).Which would be better to go with?
 
Jul 19, 2005 at 2:40 PM Post #18 of 33
I have the Jasmine T200. It's a 5w tube integrated and headphone amp with a built in Burr-brown DAC fed by a USB input. It also has a regular RCA plug input. Pretty slick, I plug the USB out of my portable PC directly into the Jasmine and get very good sound, obviously not as good as when I use my high-end CD player tough.
 
Jul 21, 2005 at 6:39 PM Post #19 of 33
AFAIK the only way you're getting all your EAX/CMSS and other audigy2 zs stuff is if you're using the analogue outs from it. If you use the digital out you either get pass-through spdif or 2 channel pcm that IIRC doesnt get all the EAX goodies added to it. You'd be better off then just using the front output->amp->headphones.
 
Jul 21, 2005 at 6:56 PM Post #20 of 33
Yea you typically don't even want to use the EAX features with headphones, only with 4.1 or 5.1 surround sound. Stereo headphones can still provide some 3d imaging. But eax surround in headphones would just be confusing. Furthermore, I'm even sure your garden variety headphone based amp with a digital-input and DAC would even perserve an EAX signal through it's decoding. But I don't know that for sure.

Honestly, given the price points of a new audigy (or better yet, a turtle beach card) and an external digital audio converter, you're better off getting a new sound card.

As a side note, how did you screw up the analog outputs on the sound card? Perhaps it's something that can be resoldered or resolved for only a few dollars.
 
Jul 21, 2005 at 8:00 PM Post #21 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by TWIFOSP
Yea you typically don't even want to use the EAX features with headphones, only with 4.1 or 5.1 surround sound. Stereo headphones can still provide some 3d imaging. But eax surround in headphones would just be confusing. Furthermore, I'm even sure your garden variety headphone based amp with a digital-input and DAC would even perserve an EAX signal through it's decoding. But I don't know that for sure.

Honestly, given the price points of a new audigy (or better yet, a turtle beach card) and an external digital audio converter, you're better off getting a new sound card.

As a side note, how did you screw up the analog outputs on the sound card? Perhaps it's something that can be resoldered or resolved for only a few dollars.


Keep in mind that EAX != Surround upmixing, that's what cmss is for. EAX is for environmental effects.

EAX 2: basic environment stuff (metal walls, echos in rooms)
EAX 3: multiple effects per room
EAX 4: blending effects from one area to another (echo's from one room coming into an open area)

Also, I'm pretty sure that non of the eax stuff even gets applied to a digital stream that's send out. AFAIK it just gets applied to the analogue outputs on the card. The digital is just the stereo sound, or pass through spdif.
 
Jul 21, 2005 at 11:15 PM Post #23 of 33
EAX is MORE than just surround processing. It adds reverbs and other effects to games (occlusion for example). And these work just as well with digital out as analog. Yes you can get EAX through the digital out!

Try Thief 3 with EAX4.0. Or Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
 
Jul 22, 2005 at 5:23 PM Post #25 of 33
The more and more I read, the more I think you cant get EAX from the coax out.

Sigh, I'm probably just going stick to onboard sound for now until the x-fi comes out. Ill keep trying to work on the card though.
 
Jul 23, 2005 at 3:50 AM Post #26 of 33
After screwing up the analog outputs on my audigy 2 zs, I decided to see if there was such a thing as a headphone amplifer that has a digital input? The digital out of the Audigy is working fine.

From Korea,
Another DAC/Headamp combination with portable capability, the Dr.Dac is coming in this weekend.

Here is Korean website and you will find "NEWS - ESI" on the left. There is a line with 7/18 "Dr.Dac ..." click it and you will see the announcement that the delivery of DrDac would be coming July 26.

http://www.egosys.co.kr/esi/home.php

If you want more information and pictures, click the link below and use your favorite translation tool.

http://www.egosys.co.kr/zeroboard/zb...&desc=asc&no=3
 
Jul 23, 2005 at 4:18 AM Post #27 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sasaki
After screwing up the analog outputs on my audigy 2 zs, I decided to see if there was such a thing as a headphone amplifer that has a digital input? The digital out of the Audigy is working fine.

From Korea,
Another DAC/Headamp combination with portable capability, the Dr.Dac is coming in this weekend.

Here is Korean website and you will find "NEWS - ESI" on the left. There is a line with 7/18 "Dr.Dac ..." click it and you will see the announcement that the delivery of DrDac would be coming July 26.

http://www.egosys.co.kr/esi/home.php

If you want more information and pictures, click the link below and use your favorite translation tool.

http://www.egosys.co.kr/zeroboard/zb...&desc=asc&no=3


That looks great. I will definitely keep that in mind when I find out that the X-Fi really is just hype. Do you know of any US retailers? or the estimated cost?
 
Jul 23, 2005 at 1:31 PM Post #28 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by skiguy411
That looks great. I will definitely keep that in mind when I find out that the X-Fi really is just hype. Do you know of any US retailers? or the estimated cost?


Sorry, I do not know US distributer.
ESI is primary an audio electric company so the ESI/AudioTrak products could be found in your local electric store like Frys, but I am not sure about these headphone amps.

http://www.esi-pro.com/

http://audiotrak.net/
 
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