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Ok so I've only just begun getting into higher quality audio. I picked up a pair of ATH-A900s the other day and Ive been letting them burn in but I feel the bass is a tad bit lower than I was hoping. I am pairing the headphones with a X-Fi Titanium HD sound card, I mainly game and listen to music/movies as a secondary interest. I have been trying to research my question and I've gotten some ideas but there's so much info that I'm still at a loss. So I guess my question is should I get an Amp to give the headphones the little kick to bring them up, or should I get a DAC/Amp combo? This will be for desktop use only, there's a chance I may pick up a pair of DT880s in the future so having an amp to power them would be a plus. I would like to keep the cost $200 or under if possible. Thanks in advance for any/all your suggestions!
The TiHD (Titanium HD) already comes with a good enough DAC.
The Audio Technica ATH-A900 are not "bassy" headphones, so no matter what amplifier you use with them, chances are the bass will not really improve (louder) that much.
As the ATH-A900s are only 40-Ohm, does not take much of an amplifier to drive them anyway.
The TiHD headphone jack has a high impedance (35-Ohm), which might be giving the A900s a "muddy" bass.
Your 40-Ohm headphones would work best with an headphone amplifier that has an impedance of 5-Ohms or less.
So, with a better matched amplifier to the ATH-A900s, the bass may not really get louder, but hopefully the quality of the bass will improve.
A low cost way to get a headphone amplifier is the Fiio E11 ($65) portable headphone amplifier.
The Fiio comes with a very low impedance.
For around $15 you can get two spare batteries (BL-5B) and a simple AC battery charger, for use with the E11.
The O2 (Objective 2, $155) headphone amplifier has a low impedance.
The TiHD can send headphone surround sound thru the RCA outputs.