uaciaut
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2011
- Posts
- 30
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I'll get straight to the point.
1. Is Asus Xonar STX 2 worth the money or should i stick to buying an Asus Xonar STX. I'm looking to drive something like a Sennheiser HD558-598, maybe an HD600 if i'm feeling crazy with money or something of similar cost (HD 600 is the upper upper limit of my budget).
I'm also using a pair of Creative Gigaworks T20 Series 2 - speakers (it's a 2.0 system, link for refference: http://www.head-fi.org/products/creative-labs-gigaworks-t20-series-ii-2-0-multimedia-speaker-system-with-basxport-technology ). I don't plan on using a 5.1/7.1 any time soon as any system of that type worth its' bucks is too expensive for my budget, so take that into consideration.
A note here - i saw that the STX 2 has an op-amp swap kit and a tool that helps with swapping out op-maps. How difficult is swapping op-amps in general and would said tool be useful at all? I do plan on getting other op-amps at some point in the future, figured i'd ask how hard it is to do it.
2. Looking to get a new pair of headphones as well. I'm currently using a pair of Sennheiser HD 449 ( http://www.head-fi.org/products/sennheiser-hd-449-headphones ) through an Asus Xonar DG ( http://www.head-fi.org/products/asus-xonar-dg-cmi8786-sound-card ) and i've been pretty satisfied with the way they sound, although the build was kinda flimsy (every pad on them is kinda falling apart).
I'm looking for something that sounds similar but better if that makes any sense - slightly warm, detailed sound, with a punchy, defined bass (i don't think myself to be a basshead but i do listen to a lot of electronic music, DnB included here; no dubstep), clear detailed mids and not-too-bright highs. I listen to a lot of **** (from jazz, classical, rock yadda yadda i'm a musical elitist you've heard it before bs) so i don't want something that favors one genre at the expense of others.
Price-range is like i said from the price tag of HD 558 to HD600 but at this point an HD600 would cost me an arm and a leg so it's definitely my upper limit.
I am buying from Romania so prices here are DEFINITELY inflated like **** and selection is fairly limited. A few refference sites i'm most likely gonna use (unless you know of something better, sorted by price, descending):
http://www.pcgarage.ro/casti/
https://www.avstore.ro/casti/?sort=price_desc
http://hificenter.ro/casti-hi-fi?t=1391&s=p-d
HD600's are about 400 euro here fwiw.
A note here as well - i can buy through a friend who lives in Germany so if you know of some offer that's priced much lower there feel free to link. I generally want to avoid doing this if there's any issue with the warranty on the product though, since it would be a pain to return the actual product.
Thanks in advance for your time and patients, and stay awesome!
1. Is Asus Xonar STX 2 worth the money or should i stick to buying an Asus Xonar STX. I'm looking to drive something like a Sennheiser HD558-598, maybe an HD600 if i'm feeling crazy with money or something of similar cost (HD 600 is the upper upper limit of my budget).
I'm also using a pair of Creative Gigaworks T20 Series 2 - speakers (it's a 2.0 system, link for refference: http://www.head-fi.org/products/creative-labs-gigaworks-t20-series-ii-2-0-multimedia-speaker-system-with-basxport-technology ). I don't plan on using a 5.1/7.1 any time soon as any system of that type worth its' bucks is too expensive for my budget, so take that into consideration.
A note here - i saw that the STX 2 has an op-amp swap kit and a tool that helps with swapping out op-maps. How difficult is swapping op-amps in general and would said tool be useful at all? I do plan on getting other op-amps at some point in the future, figured i'd ask how hard it is to do it.
2. Looking to get a new pair of headphones as well. I'm currently using a pair of Sennheiser HD 449 ( http://www.head-fi.org/products/sennheiser-hd-449-headphones ) through an Asus Xonar DG ( http://www.head-fi.org/products/asus-xonar-dg-cmi8786-sound-card ) and i've been pretty satisfied with the way they sound, although the build was kinda flimsy (every pad on them is kinda falling apart).
I'm looking for something that sounds similar but better if that makes any sense - slightly warm, detailed sound, with a punchy, defined bass (i don't think myself to be a basshead but i do listen to a lot of electronic music, DnB included here; no dubstep), clear detailed mids and not-too-bright highs. I listen to a lot of **** (from jazz, classical, rock yadda yadda i'm a musical elitist you've heard it before bs) so i don't want something that favors one genre at the expense of others.
Price-range is like i said from the price tag of HD 558 to HD600 but at this point an HD600 would cost me an arm and a leg so it's definitely my upper limit.
I am buying from Romania so prices here are DEFINITELY inflated like **** and selection is fairly limited. A few refference sites i'm most likely gonna use (unless you know of something better, sorted by price, descending):
http://www.pcgarage.ro/casti/
https://www.avstore.ro/casti/?sort=price_desc
http://hificenter.ro/casti-hi-fi?t=1391&s=p-d
HD600's are about 400 euro here fwiw.
A note here as well - i can buy through a friend who lives in Germany so if you know of some offer that's priced much lower there feel free to link. I generally want to avoid doing this if there's any issue with the warranty on the product though, since it would be a pain to return the actual product.
Thanks in advance for your time and patients, and stay awesome!
