[timbowman1]

Quote:

I don't know hardly anuything about soundcards, since im a console gamer, but from what I understand, those headphones would probably sound pretty damned good on your standard one.
 
I use the Fischer Audio FA-011's for PC gaming when I play stuff like starcraft and League of Legends, and I find that they have just as good if not better positioning and soundstage as my ax720's do on console, and sound better quality as well..
 
I have a very basic sound card that came with my computer, by the way
 
However, I noticed that they dont sound very good through my tritton decoder box on console, which is weird, but I bought them for music enjoyment anyway, and they do wonderfully for that
 
The fact that they do so well for PC gaming was just an added bonus to an already amazing purchase

I don't have a sound card at all, just integrated mobo. Xonar comes with Dolby Headphone, and I really want to experience this. I guess ill just do it!
 

 

[SteelRain]

This thread has been endlessly useful guys(MLE especially), and am just wanting verification that i have made the right choice with what i have almost decided to buy. I will mostly use this on xbox 360 though i plan on testing out pc gaming when i get my HP pavilion 6024tx.
 
DT990 PRO 250ohm + antlion mic mod + astro mix amp(or alternatively leave my turtle beach x41 processor and get a steel series audio mixer) + fiio e9 and e7 combo. How well would this combo work/sound? I realised how bad my x41s sound after using the superlux 668bs for a while and want a serious upgrade.
 
Also just wondering about the DAC processing of the e7. Wouldn't it be obsolete in the face of the turtle beach dolby processor as it would be already take care of it? After being converted to analogue signal by the turtle beach/astro processor wouldn't the e7 be useless? or does a passthrough occur? Is this how i would set it up? xbox 360>decoder>DAC>Amp.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

That's right. The E7 would not be used in that setup. Just the E9 will suffice. Only get the E7 if you need a DAC for non gaming purposes on PC, though you would do better with an E10 for that. I have not upgraded from the E7 because I'm holding out for the E17.

Just remember, the DT990 Pro has a LOT of bass.

 

[calpis]

Might be a good idea to amend the first post with devices that support DH (for consoles) and allow the use of any headphone.
 
Astro Mixamp and 5.8, TurtleBeach Earforce DSS, JVC/Victor SU-DH1, Tritton AX720, certain receivers from Harman Kardon, Denon, and Marantz.
 
Or maybe not since it's actually a pretty short list...

 

[paulkemp]

That's right. The E7 would not be used in that setup. Just the E9 will suffice...

So using a amp after the mixamp is necessary?

 

[obazavil]

Quote:

So using a amp after the mixamp is necessary?

Only for hard-to-drive cans, such as Beyers, or K70x/Q701
 
If money is a problem, just get AX720 and be happy ($130).
The other not-so-cheap option is mixamp + PC360 ($130+$200=$330).

 

[paulkemp]

Quote:

Only for hard-to-drive cans, such as Beyers, or K70x/Q701

 But would't something like the E7 increase the performance? Inbetween the mixamp and the cans? Even for low impediance headphones?

 

[obazavil]

Quote:

 But would't something like the E7 increase the performance? Inbetween the mixamp and the cans? Even for low impediance headphones?

Not at all.
 
MixAmp amplifier is pretty good, you won't need a 2nd amplifier in the chain at all.
The reasons why some ppl here suggest E9 after mixamp for K70x and DT990/600 is because of distorsions in the sound for lack of "juice" that gets fixed with a more powerful amplifier feeding the cans. For low impendance headphones MixAmp is more than enough.
 

 

[timbowman1]

I'm sorry for asking too many questions :C
I just want to confirm it with you guys. I'm going to buy a PC360 with a Xonar DG for Dolby Headphone. Is there anything wrong about this setup? You seem to know a lot of technical details and stuff like DAC (?).
Thanks

 

[Ruahrc]

I think that setup will be just fine.  I use almost the exact same setup on my PC- PC360 headset plus Xonar U3, which is ASUS' USB sound card (I have to use a USB sound card since my computer is an SFF mITX gaming case and only has a single expansion slot for a graphics card).  I'm pretty sure the Xonar DG is at least equal and most likely better than the U3 that I use.
 
I've actually been pretty satisfied with the Asus sound hardware.  The software/drivers are far, far superior to the Creative stuff and they also implement DH which at least gives a consistent sound experience across platforms (i.e. DH on the consoles, and DH on the PC too)

 

[NamelessPFG]

While the Xonar DG is hard to beat in terms of price to performance, I've found Dolby Headphone inferior to CMSS-3D Headphone in positioning when it comes to DirectSound3D and OpenAL titles.
 
However, when it's software-driven audio like XAudio2 or FMOD (like most current games, probably because it's easier for cross-platform development that way), they're about even, mostly because you're only getting 5.1/7.1 at the most instead of a proper 3D sound space.
 
In terms of drivers...given the existence of these modified Xonar drivers, Asus may not fare any better than Creative in the driver department after all. (Is there some sort of unwritten rule that says sound card drivers have to suck?)

 

[Apollo33]

Thanks for the responses, chicolom and Vonx.

 

[Ruahrc]

Didn't know about those drivers nameless.  I guess they don't really apply to me though since my U3 uses the same chip as the U1, which isn't in those drivers.  Anyhow, I still say on the whole the ASUS drivers are far superior to anything Creative ever made.  On my setup at least, the ASUS utility was very small and lightweight.  There were two processes run by ASUS.  One was the little configuration utility itself, which minimized to the system tray.  You can set up your sound prefs, apply EQ, etc. there.  The other process was a monitoring process that detected the presence of the USB device.  When the USB device was unplugged, the configuration utility automatically closes.  When you plug it back in, the monitoring process detects this and boots up the configuration utility back into your system tray.
 
But since I'm anal and hate ANY extraneous icons in my system tray (I only have 3- windows sound icon, windows network icon, and MSI afterburner) I went one step further.  Once I set up my sound settings the way I wanted (applied a slight bit of EQ and set up DH processing), these settings seem to be saved somewhere, since everything continues to work fine even if I manually shut down the two ASUS processes via the task manager.  Since I don't need to change anything around, I just blocked the monitoring process from starting upon windows boot.  The result is, everything works perfectly with no processes involved.  When I plug the U3 in, windows switches the sound output to that device (since I set it up to be the default output device) and DH is already configured since I had done that earlier in the ASUS configuration utility.  But since I turned off the monitoring process, the configuration utility doesn't actually load (no need for it to load if I don't need to make changes to the settings).  So everything works automatically and zero needed processes.  FAR better than the Creative crap.  Even if you left the processes to run, their memory overhead is very small.  It's totally unnecessary in my system with 8GB RAM installed, but like I said I HATE having any unnecessary system tray icons, and go through extra steps to keep as little as possible from appearing there.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

I'm sorry for asking too many questions :C
I just want to confirm it with you guys. I'm going to buy a PC360 with a Xonar DG for Dolby Headphone. Is there anything wrong about this setup? You seem to know a lot of technical details and stuff like DAC (?).
Thanks

The Sennheiser PC360 has gone way up on price, best I can find is $215.
 
Go to the Electronics Expo website, put the Senn HD558 into the cart, use the coupon code "BOUNTII".
Should be around $80 less then the PC360, I'm sure you can get a decent mic for $15 to $25.
 
Asus Xonar DG is about the best bang for the buck sound card.
 
 

 

[NamelessPFG]

 
Quote:

Didn't know about those drivers nameless.  I guess they don't really apply to me though since my U3 uses the same chip as the U1, which isn't in those drivers.  Anyhow, I still say on the whole the ASUS drivers are far superior to anything Creative ever made.  On my setup at least, the ASUS utility was very small and lightweight.  There were two processes run by ASUS.  One was the little configuration utility itself, which minimized to the system tray.  You can set up your sound prefs, apply EQ, etc. there.  The other process was a monitoring process that detected the presence of the USB device.  When the USB device was unplugged, the configuration utility automatically closes.  When you plug it back in, the monitoring process detects this and boots up the configuration utility back into your system tray.
 
But since I'm anal and hate ANY extraneous icons in my system tray (I only have 3- windows sound icon, windows network icon, and MSI afterburner) I went one step further.  Once I set up my sound settings the way I wanted (applied a slight bit of EQ and set up DH processing), these settings seem to be saved somewhere, since everything continues to work fine even if I manually shut down the two ASUS processes via the task manager.  Since I don't need to change anything around, I just blocked the monitoring process from starting upon windows boot.  The result is, everything works perfectly with no processes involved.  When I plug the U3 in, windows switches the sound output to that device (since I set it up to be the default output device) and DH is already configured since I had done that earlier in the ASUS configuration utility.  But since I turned off the monitoring process, the configuration utility doesn't actually load (no need for it to load if I don't need to make changes to the settings).  So everything works automatically and zero needed processes.  FAR better than the Creative crap.  Even if you left the processes to run, their memory overhead is very small.  It's totally unnecessary in my system with 8GB RAM installed, but like I said I HATE having any unnecessary system tray icons, and go through extra steps to keep as little as possible from appearing there.

Well, X-Fi drivers in my experience aren't COMPLETE crap, but I don't get what's with the mode system (Why do I need to be in Game Mode for hardware-accelerated audio? Why do I need to be in Audio Creation Mode to have ASIO available?) that gets locked up every so often (can't switch modes). Also, there's bloat, but modern driver packages (at least with the X-Fi Forte and Titanium HD) can at least trim it down a little. The only extra system tray icon I have is the Volume Panel, and I wouldn't install that if it weren't my main means of switching modes and enabling/disabling CMSS-3D Headphone.
 
Still, I cannot deny the bloat, and there's also the chance that because I've been using the Auzentech X-Fi cards and the Titanium HD, the drivers don't suck as much as they could, especially with Creative's PCI card. At least I don't notice any hisses, pops, crackles, or whatnot that weren't originally in the source to begin with. (It's also still a lot better than, say, trying to use an Aureal-based card under 2000/XP or later. Good luck with that...)
 
I suppose I'm just willing to put up with a bit of extra crap now and then if that's what it takes to make my games sound right. (Some might think I'm a bit too obsessed with video game audio in the sense that I would be more than happy to collect a particular revision of the Sound Blaster AWE32 with an ASP/CSP, a genuine Yamaha OPL3 FM synth, and no bugged wavetable header, a Gravis Ultrasound, and a Roland MT-32, CM-32L, or LAPC-I LA synth at the minimum, just to have all my DOS game bases covered.)