[picolo]

Moved up from Sony xb500's to M50's and now to dt990's. I have a Xonar DG feeding an E11. It's ok, but I have to put the eq on 2 (max bass) and the volume on 8/10, along with the computer's volume at max, for it to sound good.

What would you recommend? I thought about:

Getting a used home theater receiver to hook up to the sound card and drive the headphones that way.

Return the E11 and get an E9 or another amp.

Upgrade the sound card to a Xonar Essence STX.

Any recommendations would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Moved up from Sony xb500's to M50's and now to dt990's. I have a Xonar DG feeding an E11. It's ok, but I have to put the eq on 2 (max bass) and the volume on 8/10, along with the computer's volume at max, for it to sound good.
What would you recommend? I thought about:
Getting a used home theater receiver to hook up to the sound card and drive the headphones that way.
Return the E11 and get an E9 or another amp.
Upgrade the sound card to a Xonar Essence STX.
Any recommendations would be appreciated, thanks.

Surprised your having volume problems.
Have you tried installing the third party driver "Unitied Xonar Driver" from Brainbit.
Did you disable (in the BIOS) the motherboard's on-board audio?
Tried playing music files with Foobar2000?
 
The Fiio E9 would easily drive 250-Ohm Beyer headphones.
 
The Receiver would be good, but only if your looking to invest in speakers.
 
The Essence STX would be about the best upgrade, much better DAC and an amp that can drive 600-ohm headphones.

 

[picolo]

Thanks Purple Angel. I had an old Denon avr4800 receiver in the closet. Bought a toslink cable and hooked it to the Xonar, and I am happy with the results.