[KarateKid]

Let me first begin by describing my background.

I'm not an audiophile, but recently I decided to treat myself, took a risk and bought the HD555s. For the price I got them for, they sound excellent. Better than anything else I've owned or have tried in recent memory. But I can't help that I'm not getting the most out of them.

Right now I'm running a PC with the original Audigy 1 (es aka EMU10K2) soundcard. I've been doing some research over the last few days about how one could possibly improve the sound coming out of these cans. I'm wondering if an amp would be a wise investment? If so, how much money, within reason, could I get away with spending on an amp? I have no need for speakers, as I cannot house any sort of decent configuration where my computer is, so would a dedicated headphone amp (something like the totalbithead) be a good choice?

Also I've read discussions regarding DACs. From what I understand it can improve the signal as the soundcard would send the pure digital data straight to some sort of decoder which is external and will basically do a better job of decoding the data into analog into one's headphone vs getting the sound straight off the soundcard. Does the quality of the soundcard matter if all it's doing is sending out digital data (my audigy only has a digital out AFIAK)? I understand my Audigy doesn't do "bit perfect" digital out. Would I benefit from a new soundcard then?

Lastly, this is a question for anybody who's a gamer, if I use an external DAC with a PCI soundcard like the audigy, would my CPU usage go up or does it not really change at all vs going with the DACs on the audigy itself?

\Any correction or advice as to what to buy would be greatly appreciated. I don't have too much money to spare, probably wouldn't want to spend more than 300 dollars on this stuff for now, but any tips would be great.

 

[cconnaker]

If you get an external USB DAC it will bypass your internal soundcard altogether so you don't have to worry about a non-bit perfect internal card.

You can spend whatever you want on an amp. I know that's not the answer you're looking for, but it would be a disservice for me to suggest something or a price range without knowing much about you. For example, I could get my wife a $150 total bit head or a several thousand dollar Woo Audio amp and she wouldn't notice a difference.

 

[Operandi]

If use the digital out options on your Audigy your CPU consumption should be the same as using you are using it now via analog. I'm not sure how things change with USB DACs.

As far as equipment goes check out the Firestone Cute amps and Fubar DACs. The Fubar III combines the DAC and amp in one unit, in addition to adding Pre-outs.

 

[KarateKid]

Thanks for those responses guys.

I really wouldn't want to use an USB solution. The USB cards (just very basic cards) I've tried in the past all gave me some sort stuttering, I think my singlecore system is not enough to keep up with multiple USB devices (I have highpolling USB keyboard and mouse). I'm looking into an X-Fi, maybe even the high end Prelude because I can get it for a decent price this week where I live. I understand it can do bit-perfect digital out and it already comes with the optical cable if I want to use a DAC with it.

Thanks for the advice on the amp though. I really want to try and minimize my spendings but I don't want to be wasting my money either by continually upgrading in the future. If I could get the headroom micro amp for half the retail price, is it worth it?

What about the headroom micro DAC? Is it any better than the onboard DACs on the Xfi Prelude? Would it be worth using the optical out of the Prelude and using the DAC with it? Am I able to get the EAX effects in games through the Xfi -> DAC -> amp?

It's good to hear that using digital out won't take up any more resources on the CPU vs. using analog. I was afraid that it would somehow take more work to get things through digitally.

 

[cerbie]

An Audigy's DAC is nothing special, so there's some lacking in the source, there. But...

Creative cards up through the Audigy 2, at least, resample very badly. Stick a DAC on the coax out, and you've still got that to deal with, and possible data not coming out perfectly (Audigy have bit-perfect SPDIF? Guess not), and I don't know how good they do SPDIF in terms of clock, either (jitter to the point of audibility?).

But, the resampling is bad. Music, you see, is mostly 44.1kHz, and audio devices generally output at 48kHz. Not only that, but it's not a perfectly-timed conversion. You may be going from 44.093kHz to 48.008kHz. Not too different, but they diverge, so it's not as simple as you might think right off the bat. With good chips handling this, like Crystal ones (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, when the Audigy was new), you wouldn't even notice it wasn't 44.1 all the way through. Creatives are...not so good. Some can pass 44.1 straight on through, too.

Then, there's kmixer: kernel streaming, research it.

Now, taking all that in, if you run Linux (unlikely), or use Foobar2000 for a music player, you can get around the resmapling issue by using high quality software resampling up to 48Khz in the player, with the sacrifice of a few CPU cycles. Doing so will not get you a better analog output in the Audigy, but let you get a nice amp, quickly delivered (cheap is getting thin, with Norm out, and Xin back to long waits, again), for well under your budget, so that you can wait on getting a new source.

Hopefully someone with more than an hour or so's experience with HD555 can chime in on whether resampling + amp or a whole new sound card would be a better route.

USB working well is depending on a few different things. The host controller, the OS, and the USB implementation of the device. The more modern the parts, the better off you're likely to be, as a simple rule.

You should be able to get any and all effects with the X-Fi as a transport (it should be sending the same thing to the DAC as to the SPDIF port), but you might want to verify that, just in case.

 

[KarateKid]

Well I'm dead set for an Xfi right now, probably will pick up that Prelude on sale tomorrow. Hopefully it is as good as they say (no resampling is best as you've put it Cerbie).

Yeah I don't use Linux, just plain ole SP2 XP Pro for me. Is it possible not to have resampled sound in Windows?

And my comp isn't that new... actually it's quite strange as I've upgraded to really rare parts so it runs on par with an average comp in today's standard but the motherboard and the chipset , host controller and all that, overall are ancient, so USB is a big no-no for me.

Does the size of an External DAC (or maybe I should say price instead of size) matter or is it all dependent on the chips and components used inside of it? I've looked into the headroom micro DAC and it's got good reviews for how small and cheap it is yet it is comparable to much more expensive offerings.

 

[cerbie]

Foobar2000 will do a good job of resampling, either SSRC or PPHS. FB2K can be used as an iTunes backend, IIRC, if you're into iTunes.