[MattSWE]

ok I understand about the D3, ill just buy a good quality line out to rca's cable and see how it sounds. I plug my ath m-50s into the headphone Jack on the card and is crystal clear so I should be good.

I don't have the lyr yet but plan on buying that and the lcd-2's soon.

 

[stv014]

I asked about the Lyr mainly because it has a grounded AC connector, so you may run into ground loop issues. If that happens, you will hear interference from the amplifier, but not directly from the headphone jack of the sound card.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Hi, guys. I am in a similar situation and would appreciate your suggestions. I have a Soundblaster X-fi in my pc . I plug my headphones in its headphone jack and there is not background noise , is dead silent even with my Triple Fi. 10. When listening with my Denon 5000 i use the volumen at 3% and with Q 701 at 5% beyond that it becomes too loud. My question is , Is the Soundblaster DAC and Amp good enough or should i buy and Amp/ DAC to improve performance ?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Do you know which model Creative X-Fi sound card it is?
If it's the Titanium HD, then you really do not need to add a DAC, just a good headphone amplifier.
With the older model X-Fi's, then getting both a DAC and headphone amplifier might be a good choice.
 
Your Denon AH-D5000 (25-Ohm) and Triple Fi 10 (32-Ohm) are low Ohm. AKG Q701 (62-Ohm)
So a headphone amplifier like the O2 (Objective 2) headphone amplifier ($155), which has a very low impedance (1-Ohm) should benefit the sound quality of the D5000 & Triple Fi 10.
The Fiio E11 portable headphone amplifier ($65) also comes with a low impedance (1-Ohm).
(impedance is resistance, measured in Ohms)
It's preferred to have the impedance of the headphone (amplifier) output to be at least 8 times less then the impedance of the headphones.
 
Most sound cards come with a high impedance, like 10-Ohm or 35-Ohm or even 100-Ohm.

 

[DannyBuoy]

LCD2 owner here who has gone through quite a few swaps to find the sound I like. Went from Creative X-fi to Claro sound card and then optical to several DACs and DAC/AMP combos. including a $2,500 adventure into Violectric land...
 
A couple months ago, I tried a DAC/AMP from Audio-gd (have owned two of their dacs before) and I was really impressed with the power it had to drive the LCDs as well as my HD-25 and Triple-fis. That was the NFB-11.32. The beauty of this is that you can bypass your soundcard and come out of the USB port as this is a new 32Bit USB imput with the Sabre ES9018 32 Bit DAC. It was clean, detailed, punchy in the right places and overall a great sound match for the LCD-2 for $339.
 
The only downside for me is that it did not have a line in for my turntable setup. So I sold it and now I am getting the upgraded version of this (NFB-1.32 Balanced DAC, and NFB-6 balanced Amp with Line in). I am going to run it in fully balanced mode with ACSS as my LCD have a 4 wire norse audio balanced cable with 4 pin XLR.
 
I mention this in hopes of helping you not go down the path of a new soundcard and instead save your money for a nice DAC/AMP combo with quality USB input.
 
If you look through my list of items you will see I have tried everything from a WA6SE Tube setup with an Audio-gd Ref-5 to the Claro->V800->V181 setup and for much less than half the price, I was happier with the DAC/AMP from Audio-gd when it came to sound that I enjoy in the LCD-2.

 

[MattSWE]

Thanks for that info,  can anybody else vouch for the Audio-gd NFB-11.32 sound quality and power?  Thanks

 

[manzano804]

PurpleAngel thanks for your answer. The Soundblaster X-Fi is SB 460 from 2.005. I also have a question , is the volume i can reach, an indicator of the amp's capacity  to drive the headphone? Cause as  i told you even at 5 % i can get enough volumen with my Q 701.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

PurpleAngel thanks for your answer. The Soundblaster X-Fi is SB 460 from 2.005. I also have a question , is the volume i can reach, an indicator of the amp's capacity  to drive the headphone? Cause as  i told you even at 5 % i can get enough volume with my Q 701.

Creative SB 460 is the Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic (PCI) sound card.
I believe the XtremeMusic did not come with a headphone amplifier, but that does not mean a sound card can not drive headphones.
I think your getting enough voltage (or current) to drive a headphone, But I'm guessing the headphone jack has a high impedance, which means the bass quality maybe suffering.
One think to consider is getting a newer Creative sound card, like the Titanium (PCI-E, non-HD), refurb $43, it should about the same for driving headphones,
but it does come with a few more features, like optical output and DDL (Dolby Digital Live)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102043
 
With optical output, you have the option to add an external (optical input) DAC and headphone amplifier of your choosing, anytime in the future.

 

[manzano804]

PurpleAngel thanks for your explanations and suggestions, they have been very helpful,
Regards.