[Bugattikid2012]

   
 
I'm not sure it has the power to drive something like dt880pro,612pro,hd650 but it should be enough to drive something like 712pro,hp200,hd598 or even a q701.

The Sound Blaster Z series can drive anything up to a headphone impedance of 600 ohms...  A quick google would've told you that. If you don't believe me, check out creative's site and navigate to their sound cards.  I'd link you, but I can't as I have a newish account. 

  Get the ATH-M50x !! You will love them !

I demoed these at a store, they seemed very... small as far as their sound stage goes.  It felt like straight up stereo, however it did produce good quality sound.  I would recommending getting something with a larger sound stage, as this sound stage is tiny!

 

[Head Injury]

 
The Sound Blaster Z series can drive anything up to a headphone impedance of 600 ohms...  A quick google would've told you that. If you don't believe me, check out creative's site and navigate to their sound cards.  I'd link you, but I can't as I have a newish account. 

This is meaningless marketing copy. We need to know its output impedance and voltage/power output at various loads to know what it can really drive. Impedance is only half the story when it comes to driving headphones.

 

[mju789]

  This is meaningless marketing copy. We need to know its output impedance and voltage/power output at various loads to know what it can really drive. Impedance is only half the story when it comes to driving headphones.

Sorry, had a busy day today and yesterday.
Here: http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/audio/MAX97220A.html
 
I have absolutely no idea what those things mean. I've been looking at several reviews of Sennheiser HD 650 but are they hard to drive, as you said about the card, can it do it? Or would I need to purchase an amplifier?

 

[Bugattikid2012]

Oh, I thought that it would be fairly accurate... /)

  This is meaningless marketing copy. We need to know its output impedance and voltage/power output at various loads to know what it can really drive. Impedance is only half the story when it comes to driving headphones.

 

[Head Injury]

  Sorry, had a busy day today and yesterday.
Here: http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/audio/MAX97220A.html
 
I have absolutely no idea what those things mean. I've been looking at several reviews of Sennheiser HD 650 but are they hard to drive, as you said about the card, can it do it? Or would I need to purchase an amplifier?

You'll have to thank Bugatti for the bump, sorry I didn't see this! I'm going to keep everything simple, and if you want me to walk you through the math on how I got anything let me know.
 
The first question is how powerful your soundcard is. I can't find any official specs, but a Google search did happen to uncover this thread where someone measured it. Assuming he did everything correctly, you have 2.2 volts and 28 ohm output impedance to work with.
 
You'll get almost exactly 2 Vrms into the 300 ohm HD650. Oddly enough I can't find official specs for the HD650 anymore either, but its sensitivity is somewhere between 102 and 104 dB per Volt. So you'll get peak volumes between 108 and 110 dB. That is, in my opinion, plenty of volume to not have to worry about buying a separate amp. But that's up to you.
 
Keep in mind, an output impedance of 28 is awful. You want as close as possible to 0 as you can get. The HD650 has a high impedance so you don't have to worry too much about it, but you will get a volume boost of about 0.3 dB in the bass centered at 80-90 Hz, and maybe some extra distortion down there as well. The volume boost will be virtually imperceptible, and I wouldn't worry about the distortion right now. However, if you ever decide to get headphones with a lower impedance I strongly recommend a separate amp. Just about anything you buy will have lower output impedance than your card, and there are several good amps in the $100 range with impedances of 1 or less.

 

[mju789]

 
You'll have to thank Bugatti for the bump, sorry I didn't see this! I'm going to keep everything simple, and if you want me to walk you through the math on how I got anything let me know.
 
The first question is how powerful your soundcard is. I can't find any official specs, but a Google search did happen to uncover this thread where someone measured it. Assuming he did everything correctly, you have 2.2 volts and 28 ohm output impedance to work with.
 
You'll get almost exactly 2 Vrms into the 300 ohm HD650. Oddly enough I can't find official specs for the HD650 anymore either, but its sensitivity is somewhere between 102 and 104 dB per Volt. So you'll get peak volumes between 108 and 110 dB. That is, in my opinion, plenty of volume to not have to worry about buying a separate amp. But that's up to you.
 
Keep in mind, an output impedance of 28 is awful. You want as close as possible to 0 as you can get. The HD650 has a high impedance so you don't have to worry too much about it, but you will get a volume boost of about 0.3 dB in the bass centered at 80-90 Hz, and maybe some extra distortion down there as well. The volume boost will be virtually imperceptible, and I wouldn't worry about the distortion right now. However, if you ever decide to get headphones with a lower impedance I strongly recommend a separate amp. Just about anything you buy will have lower output impedance than your card, and there are several good amps in the $100 range with impedances of 1 or less.

I can't remember much about the math with volts and ohms. So basically one needs something to handle the audio, and then something to amplify it? In this case, the sound card handles the audio and has a built in amplifier?
 
I'm thinking about getting the HD 650 now that it will work (thanks for this by the way). I checked a few threads for an amp for the HD 650, but most of the things in didn't really mean much to me! Such as an amplifier having a 'crisp' sound and not complementing then HD 650's 'warm' sound. Then there was a Schiit Lyr recommendation for it, but that's a little bit too much out of my budget right now.
 
What does the output impedance of an amp do?

 

[Bugattikid2012]

 
You'll have to thank Bugatti for the bump, sorry I didn't see this! I'm going to keep everything simple, and if you want me to walk you through the math on how I got anything let me know.
 
The first question is how powerful your soundcard is. I can't find any official specs, but a Google search did happen to uncover this thread where someone measured it. Assuming he did everything correctly, you have 2.2 volts and 28 ohm output impedance to work with.
 
You'll get almost exactly 2 Vrms into the 300 ohm HD650. Oddly enough I can't find official specs for the HD650 anymore either, but its sensitivity is somewhere between 102 and 104 dB per Volt. So you'll get peak volumes between 108 and 110 dB. That is, in my opinion, plenty of volume to not have to worry about buying a separate amp. But that's up to you.
 
Keep in mind, an output impedance of 28 is awful. You want as close as possible to 0 as you can get. The HD650 has a high impedance so you don't have to worry too much about it, but you will get a volume boost of about 0.3 dB in the bass centered at 80-90 Hz, and maybe some extra distortion down there as well. The volume boost will be virtually imperceptible, and I wouldn't worry about the distortion right now. However, if you ever decide to get headphones with a lower impedance I strongly recommend a separate amp. Just about anything you buy will have lower output impedance than your card, and there are several good amps in the $100 range with impedances of 1 or less.

Hmm... That's really interesting... I was thinking about going with the SB Z for my Philips Fidelio X2's, but after seeing that output impedance....  Yeesh.  Anyways, what would you recommend for Sound Cards?  I would need something that can do virtual surround sound and up scaling to 8 channel sound, so please keep that in mind.  I was almost ready to order too...  Murphy's Law always applies I guess. 

 

[manbear]

Meh. Output impedance isn't always important. I use an amp with adjustable output impedance and I find the 30 ohm setting sounds just as good or better than the 0.1 ohm setting on most headphones. 

 

[jodgey4]

For the subjective listening experience, whatever sounds good to your ears should sound good. The problem is that people way overpay for crap that's advertised as 'neutral and clean' despite being an engineering nightmare. That's why the O2 reigns supreme for clean, versatile amps... and can trump amps many times its price in those areas.

 

[Head Injury]

  What does the output impedance of an amp do?

Output impedance does two things, at least two things that matter for headphones: acts as a voltage divider and determines electrical damping.
 
The voltage divider basically means that some of the voltage the amp produces is not delivered to the headphones, but dissipated by the amp. To find how much both the amp and headphones get, take the impedance of the headphones or amp and divide it by the total impedance of the system. So here with the 300 ohm HD650 and the 28 ohm card, 300/328 = 91.46% of the voltage produced is delivered to the headphones, and 28/328 = 8.54% is dissipated by the amp. So the amp ends up generating more heat, because it has to deal with this extra voltage, and the headphones get less voltage and volume.
 
And, because the amp will take a larger share of the voltage if it makes up a larger percent of the total impedance, the voltage delivered and volume produced go down as the headphone impedance goes down. This is important because most headphones don't have a flat impedance curve, including the HD650. The hump in the impedance that peaks at 80-90 Hz will be less affected by output impedance, so it'll get more voltage and more volume relative to other frequencies. With a large enough difference, output impedance will basically act as a bass boost. This can explain manbear's preference for 30 ohm output impedance, but it's nothing an EQ can't do with more control and it comes with a lot of negatives.
 
Speaking of negatives, electrical damping is one. Here's a Wikipedia article because I'm not knowledgeable enough and too lazy to give a good explanation. Basically, damping helps control the driver's movements, and if your damping factor (ratio between the headphone impedance and output impedance) is too low, you might get audible distortion from unwanted movement of the driver. This is most apparent around those big peaks in impedance like the HD650 has. A common damping factor to aim for is 8, that is a headphone impedance 8 times higher than the output impedance. The HD650 meets that goal with your soundcard, but barely, and I would try to avoid any headphone lower than 150-250 ohms to be safe. Lower is always better, because it means less distortion with more headphones.
 
Amps with plenty of power and low output impedance on a budget are the Schiit Magni and Fiio E10K or E11K. The Objective2 I have that jodgey mentions is good too and plays nicer with some headphones than the Magni (which is sometimes too powerful!), but then you're pushing $140 or more.

 

[manbear]

output impedance will basically act as a bass boost. This can explain manbear's preference for 30 ohm output impedance, but it's nothing an EQ can't do with more control and it comes with a lot of negatives.

Nonsense. The sound of the Ember's different output settings cant be replicated through EQ. I also prefer the 30 ohm setting through some orthos, which have no bass boost effect due to a flat impedance curve. Dont try to diagnose my preferences unless you want to talk about the Ember's output settings specifically.

 

[Folex]

Akg K7xx - Bass light
Senn 5xx - Artificial sounding
Beyer 880 - Same sound sig as akg k7xx
Sen 650 - Very fun headphone, needs a good amp
Beyer 990 - Good for EDM/rock but takes a couple of weeks to get over the listening fatigue.
Grados - 3 weeks and every moment  hurt my ears.
Audio technica 900 - Good sound but a little bass light, not the best for edm

 

[appsmarsterx]

  Akg K7xx - Bass light
Senn 5xx - Artificial sounding
Beyer 880 - Same sound sig as akg k7xx
Sen 650 - Very fun headphone, needs a good amp
Beyer 990 - Good for EDM/rock but takes a couple of weeks to get over the listening fatigue.
Grados - 3 weeks and every moment  hurt my ears.
Audio technica 900 - Good sound but a little bass light, not the best for edm

 
612pro/HP200/HP150 could be the answer ?

 

[Head Injury]

Nonsense. The sound of the Ember's different output settings cant be replicated through EQ. I also prefer the 30 ohm setting through some orthos, which have no bass boost effect due to a flat impedance curve. Dont try to diagnose my preferences unless you want to talk about the Ember's output settings specifically.

Well! In that case I'll change my diagnosis to placebo.

 

[Me x3]

  Akg K7xx - Bass light
Beyer 880 - Same sound sig as akg k7xx

This is not true to my ears.

-DT880s have a tad more bass quantity, although not as clean as K70x bass, which seems more extended and detailed in comparison.
 
-K701 have clearly more upper midrange/lower treble presence, while DT880s sound laid back in comparison.
 
-DT880s are brighter and more edgy in the upper treble around 8Khz and have more treble extension. In this region of the spectrum, K70x sound smooth in comparison.