[Mad Lust Envy]

The M50 is great for that. I still think it's awkwardly big for portable use, but if you don't mind big-ish headphones for portable use, shoot. It's a great headphone. I think the Creative Aurvana Live is also another alternative, and is a smaller headphone too. The cable isn't huge either. I'd go with that instead. Bigger soundstage and super soft pads. It's about $100 less too, and they're actually comparable in technical prowess. The M50 has a better build quality though.

Just wanna say my stepfather has both in my mother's house and I listen to them on occasion. They're both still wonderful to me.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

SWEET! Just got my Xonar U3.

It has something that is VERY, VERY important, and I didn't even realize it had. The headphone jack also doubles as an SPDIF out! the signal carries Dolby Headphone, meaning I can use my Compass 2 as the DAC and amp!! Hell, I could set it to send Dolby Digital Live, and I could use my Mixamp if I wanted to! Not that I need it as The U3 IS basically a Mixamp, but I can at least test out the differences in DH between the two.

Reading a review, it seems to be an external version of the Xonar DG. Interedasting!

edit: hmm, it's skipping the audio through my Compass 2, so I'm not positive it will work like I intended it to. We'll see. I'm sure the settings are effed, atm.

 

[SatrDrive]

Hello,
I'm new to headphones and I have a question:
 
Currently I've got a Creative X-Fi Soundblaster Titanium (about 50€) which supports CMSS-3D Virtual Surround. 
If I want to get a Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro (250Ω), will it run fine if I get an Amp but no DAC? I read a lot about this but this topic really confuses me. I was thinking about an Fiio QOGIR E09K. Will it be sufficient? I don't want to spend more money than 250€ for the Beyers(160€), Amp and all the other stuff together. Maybe you have other recommendations concerning Headphones and Amps for me. I'll probably need to get a microphone too. I'm from Europe, Austria.
Currently I've got a Turtle Beach X41 headset + station plugged in the optical of my soundcard and I'm using the bypass function to get a bit of surround sound. I use them mostly for competetive gaming (50%), the rest is music of all kinds, videos and immersive gaming experiences.
 
I hope someone can clarify this to me.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Your soundcard IS a DAC. I dunno if that card bypasses the CMSS-3D processing through it's optical out, which would then benefit from a legit dac, but if it doesn't, you could use the soundcard as a pre-amp to the E9K, to power the DT990 pro. Either way, the headphones are solid, as is the E9K. Ask Nameless or the others on his guide, which they are a LOT more knowledgeable on the soundcard part of this.

 

[SatrDrive]

So this basically means, if CMSS-3D gets bypassed optical I need to get an DAC for virtual surround or a 3.5mm headphone that works without an amp, right?
I saw some 3.5mm-input amps I could probably put between the soundcard and the dt990s, but will they be fitting?
Also thanks for the fast reply, I really appreciate the headphone list you made 

.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Well, ideally you don't need anything but your soundcard, and just plug in the headphones. But since we here tend to use headphones that benefit from beefier amps, we tend to attach amps. I dunno how good your soundcard is at powering headphones. The 990 Pro needs at least an entry level desktop amp for power. The soundcard will do surround processing directly to the headphone, you just may not be dricving it properly.

Lots of soundcards don't bypass the surround audio through the optical out. Like I said, ask on the Nameless Pc guide (linked on the first page here). They can help you out better.

 

[Chubtoad]

Thanks, I'll check out the creative headphones and see what kind of pricing I can find

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

ARGH, so it's not the U3 that is the problem, it's my Compass 2! I fed the SPDIF signal to the Mixamp to see if the audio skips... nope. It plays perfectly fine. So it looks like my Compass 2 just won't play nice with the U3's optical out capabilities. What. This sucks. I wanted to use my Compass 2 as my DAC and AMP while being fed from the U3's spdif out (to pass Dolby headphone on to the Compass 2). Ah well...

Tried Mirror's Edge, and DH doesn't seem as good as the Mixamp, so I'm gonna have to do some tweaking. I was afraid of that.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Hello,
I'm new to headphones and I have a question:
 
Currently I've got a Creative X-Fi Soundblaster Titanium (about 50€) which supports CMSS-3D Virtual Surround. 
If I want to get a Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro (250Ω), will it run fine if I get an Amp but no DAC? I read a lot about this but this topic really confuses me. I was thinking about an Fiio QOGIR E09K. Will it be sufficient? I don't want to spend more money than 250€ for the Beyers(160€), Amp and all the other stuff together. Maybe you have other recommendations concerning Headphones and Amps for me. I'll probably need to get a microphone too. I'm from Europe, Austria.
Currently I've got a Turtle Beach X41 headset + station plugged in the optical of my sound card and I'm using the bypass function to get a bit of surround sound. I use them mostly for competetive gaming (50%), the rest is music of all kinds, videos and immersive gaming experiences.

The Fiio E09K should work just fine plugged into the line-out/headphone output jack on the Titanium sound card.
The Titanium does come with a fairly decent DAC chip (CS4385?)
 
And the E09K should easily drive the DT990 Pro 250-Ohm headphones.
 
GAME ON!
 
In the future you can always swap out the Titanium (non-HD) for the Titanium HD, as the Titanium HD comes with a better DAC and op-amps.
You would plug the E09K into the Titanium HD's RCA outputs (which can pass headphone surround sound).
And make a few dollars selling off the Titanium (non-HD).

 

[pietcux]

Quote:

Sooo-is it real virtual surround?
What does "discrete multichannel audio" mean...

It means that all available channels are processed autonomous, not mixed in a matrix stereo signal and then recalculated as the first Dolby implementations like Dolby Surround did 30 years ago before we got the processing power to go DIGITAL.

 

[SatrDrive]

Quote:

The Fiio E09K should work just fine plugged into the line-out/headphone output jack on the Titanium sound card.
The Titanium does come with a fairly decent DAC chip (CS4385?)
 
And the E09K should easily drive the DT990 Pro 250-Ohm headphones.

Do you think there is a cheaper amp than the E09K which will power the headphones about nearly as well? Because 105€ is quite on the budget limit.
 
 
Great sound is essential for me, so I really want to thank you, Envy and Nameless for all your help!

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Do you think there is a cheaper amp than the E09K which will power the headphones about nearly as well? Because 105€ is quite on the budget limit.
Great sound is essential for me, so I really want to thank you, Envy and Nameless for all your help!

The PAV2V (Personal amp. 2 version 2) headphone amplifier sells for $66.30 (51 Euros?), on eBay.
It works off batteries or an AC adapter.

 

[SatrDrive]

What do you think of the Bravo Audio V2, which is a tube amp? Sells at about 55€ in Germany.
I've heard some people prefer tube amps and I think I read about the DT990 to work especially well with tubes.
 
Edit: Just read they aren't good quality.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

What do you think of the Bravo Audio V2, which is a tube amp? Sells at about 55€ in Germany.
I've heard some people prefer tube amps and I think I read about the DT990 to work especially well with tubes.
 
Edit: Just read they aren't good quality.

I've use a few of those type tube amps. for the price they are a good value.
And they would work well with 250-Ohm headphones.
Some of those types of tube amplifiers come with two small screws for balancing and fine tuning the voltage.
Requires a Digital Multi-meter (DT830, $7).
 
But the PAV2V would be easier to use, so maybe get the PAV2V for now (or Fiio E9 or E09K).
Down the line buy a tube amplifier when you become a headphone hobbyest.

 

[Evshrug]

Oooooooh... So much catch-up reading.
The Razer Surround seems interesting, I'll try out the calibrated version and play some Tomb Raider. The generic demo sounded pretty good even with my Q701 just plugged into my (low battery) iPad, though I'm getting the "indistinct rear cues" that Mad gets with THX TSP. Also, it's been like... 2 weeks? 3? since I last used headphone surround, so it's almost startling.

I think I'm going to pick up a pair of V-MODA M-100. Purely cuz I've been offered a really deep discount, I could use a "fun" closed headphone i can take outside in my lineup, and I think it would be cool to make a clan logo and get it engraved on the shields, just in case I ever go to a tourney or LAN event. It could happen XD. I'll let you guys know if it's "fun, immersive" character is too much a detriment to surround and concentration for competitiveness.

New job has been great, I think I'll finally move into an apartment very soon. Can't wait to play my games on the big plasma TV again, hook up the home theater ^_^