[JonnyN]

Hi all,
 
I've got an Asus Xonar D2X on order which should hopefully be arriving soon and will be just using my Beyer DT770 Pro's through it for the time being. The issue I have is that there is no front panel connection for the D2X so I'll be forever having to be pulling out the PC from the cabinet to plug/unplug the headphones in whenever I want to use them. I've also got the Logitech X-230 2.1 speakers which have a headphone socket located in one of the speakers. 
 
1) I was wondering, if I simply plug the X-230 speakers into the D2X and then run the headphones through the socket on the X-230 speaker - effectively daisy chaining the connection - am I likely to have any loss of signal quality by running the headphones through the speaker?
 
2) Would the headphones end up being run through the X-230 amp instead of the D2X? (forgive my ignorance on the audio science behind it, I'm currently assuming there might be a possibilty it will work like a portable amp for an iPod, like an E11 etc and bypass the internal amp (in my case the D2X) which I DONT want to happen as I want the improved quality of the D2X. All I want is for the X-230 to act as a headphone extension cable with no loss of quality.
 
Ta in advance!

 

[stv014]

I do not think the Xonar D2X has a built-in headphone amplifier, otherwise it would be mentioned in the specifications, and the Xonar D1/DX definitely do not have one.

 

[JonnyN]

Cheers stv,
 
Having read the D2X manual, it seems that it does have a headphone amp, but probably not the quality of the STX one, could just be marketing mistype though who knows.
 
I've now got the card and it does seem to drive my Beyers quite well, but it runs out of volume fairly quick.
 
Am yet to fiddle about comparing plugged into the card or through the speakers yet but will update when I try again tonight.
 
Either way, I've got an O2 amp coming from Epiphany so will be a moot point soon anyway

 

[stv014]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyN /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Having read the D2X manual, it seems that it does have a headphone amp, but probably not the quality of the STX one, could just be marketing mistype though who knows.

 
Do you mean this ?
 

 
It is in the manual of every Xonar card, so it is probably just copied and pasted regardless of whether the card has a headphone amplifier or not. I took it from the Xonar D1 manual, and I can confirm that its front out jack is not any better at driving headphones than the RCA line output of the Xonar STX (in fact, the maximum output is even slightly less). If a "real" dedicated headphone amplifier was present, it would be listed in the specifications, with a recommended headphone impedance range.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyN /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I've now got the card and it does seem to drive my Beyers quite well, but it runs out of volume fairly quick.

 
That is consistent with how my 250 Ω DT770 and DT880 Pro work from the Xonar D1, but it is of course different for everyone how much volume is enough. In fact, other than the high (100 Ω) output impedance, and the limited maximum volume, these "unamplified" (strictly speaking, there is no such thing, even a line output is driven by a low power amplifier) outputs are still not that bad for headphone usage, but not quite perfect either.