brentiful
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2011
- Posts
- 9
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- 0
Hey all,
I'm broke. As such, I really need some help finding a decent, but cheap headphone amp to power my incoming sennheiser hd555's and my sennheiser hd238's. I've been running my cans through a creative sb1090 sound blaster x-fi external sound card (http://www.amazon.com/Creative-SB1090-Blaster-Surround-System/dp/B0017QQQAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296524236&sr=8-1) connected to my computer (and only to my computer), which has been doing a decent job of amping my music, but a horrible job of surviving past a month. This is my second one of these guys that i'm about to send back, too. Granted, both units were refurbished, and I'd probably just order another -- hoping that the third try's the charm -- but the price has gone up on the refurbed units and I figure its probably a good chance to consider something else. I've spent quite a bit of time online now, looking, searching high and low for that sweet spot deal, but holy cow, everything is so freaking expensive! I don't need all the advanced functionality that some of these crazy amps seem to offer (lots of music recording capabilities, it seems). I just need my headphones to play music at a decent, quality level. I am also under the impression that I need to be able to connect whatever unit to my computer via USB cable (unless there's another way to run a line from my pc to the unit to my headphones that i'm not aware of). I should also tell you that other than the creative x-fi, I do have an onboard soundcard, however, its pretty terrible: a rocketfish 7.1 off ebay, that may or may not be working anymore, so i might be in need of a soundcard with headphone amping capabilities...
Now, I'll be honest, I don't quite understand all the lingo: DACs, pre-amps, CMOY's, etc, so I honestly don't know which, if any of these are even relevant terms that should be considered by me.. I did find some diy CMOY kits on ebay for around $20, and a couple of other systems (links below). My problem, again, is that I don't know if any of these are actually what I need. I.e. I don't know if these are intended as permanent (non-portable) desktop units to be used in conjunction with a computer and headphones.
Before I mentioned that I'm broke, but how broke/cheap am I? Well, I really don't want to spend more than $50, especially considering how I'm already pushing the upper boundaries of my budget with the cans, themselves...
So any suggestions for units/cheap-setups out there will be supremely appreciated. Also, just wanted to mention that my considerations are not restricted to the linked units above. They are simply units that I've come across which seem like they could be what i'm needing, but again, I don't know.
I'm broke. As such, I really need some help finding a decent, but cheap headphone amp to power my incoming sennheiser hd555's and my sennheiser hd238's. I've been running my cans through a creative sb1090 sound blaster x-fi external sound card (http://www.amazon.com/Creative-SB1090-Blaster-Surround-System/dp/B0017QQQAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296524236&sr=8-1) connected to my computer (and only to my computer), which has been doing a decent job of amping my music, but a horrible job of surviving past a month. This is my second one of these guys that i'm about to send back, too. Granted, both units were refurbished, and I'd probably just order another -- hoping that the third try's the charm -- but the price has gone up on the refurbed units and I figure its probably a good chance to consider something else. I've spent quite a bit of time online now, looking, searching high and low for that sweet spot deal, but holy cow, everything is so freaking expensive! I don't need all the advanced functionality that some of these crazy amps seem to offer (lots of music recording capabilities, it seems). I just need my headphones to play music at a decent, quality level. I am also under the impression that I need to be able to connect whatever unit to my computer via USB cable (unless there's another way to run a line from my pc to the unit to my headphones that i'm not aware of). I should also tell you that other than the creative x-fi, I do have an onboard soundcard, however, its pretty terrible: a rocketfish 7.1 off ebay, that may or may not be working anymore, so i might be in need of a soundcard with headphone amping capabilities...
Now, I'll be honest, I don't quite understand all the lingo: DACs, pre-amps, CMOY's, etc, so I honestly don't know which, if any of these are even relevant terms that should be considered by me.. I did find some diy CMOY kits on ebay for around $20, and a couple of other systems (links below). My problem, again, is that I don't know if any of these are actually what I need. I.e. I don't know if these are intended as permanent (non-portable) desktop units to be used in conjunction with a computer and headphones.
- http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-HA400-4-Channel-Stereo-Headphone/dp/B000KIPT30/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1296522235&sr=8-7
- http://cgi.ebay.com/Zalman-USB-2-0-5-1Channel-External-Sound-Card-ZM-RSSC-/320636030008?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa7658c38
- http://www.amazon.com/External-16BIT-7-1CH-Audio-Adapter/dp/B002LM0U2S/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1296522504&sr=1-11
- http://www.amazon.com/ART-HeadAmp4-Channel-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B000M0TN6U/ref=pd_cp_MI_1
Before I mentioned that I'm broke, but how broke/cheap am I? Well, I really don't want to spend more than $50, especially considering how I'm already pushing the upper boundaries of my budget with the cans, themselves...
So any suggestions for units/cheap-setups out there will be supremely appreciated. Also, just wanted to mention that my considerations are not restricted to the linked units above. They are simply units that I've come across which seem like they could be what i'm needing, but again, I don't know.
