[Airwolf]

After getting fed up with gaming headsets, I just purchased a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro 250 ohm headphones to use on my gaming PC with a Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional sound card.  The specifications for the card says that it can support headphones with up to 600 ohms of impedance, but I want to make sure I am not pairing these headphones with a crap source.  I am not overly picky about sound quality, but in the past I had a pair of Sennheiser headphones that were too quiet and sounded pretty terrible without a Cmoy amp.  Am I going to run into the same problem, or is the previously mentioned sound card up to the task at hand?  If you think I would benefit from an external amp, would you be so kind as to recommend one that you think would pair well with the aforementioned headphones?  If it is indeed necessary, I would like to keep the cost at or under around $100.
 
Also, I will be using this headset primarily for gaming, so I need an add-on microphone of some sort.  I ordered a Zalman Zm-Mic1 as a stop gap, but I would like something a little more elegant and with excellent sound quality.  In my research, I came across the AntLion Audio Mod Mic and it seems like it is pretty good, but it appears they are between revisions at this point with no firm date on when the newest version will be available.  Is this worth waiting for?  Is there something as good for around the same price?  I saw a mod on Reddit that looked pretty nice, but I would rather have something made for the purpose.
 
Here is the mod from Reddit by demux4555:  http://imgur.com/gallery/bKU4H/  --  Does anybody know the brand name of the cable he used there?
 
 
Thanks a bunch!

 

[Airwolf]

anybody?

 

[billybob_jcv]

Seems simple to me - when the DT990 arrive, plug them in. If the volume is too low, get an amp. As far as amps go - you could get a Schitt Magni for $100, or any of the Fiio amps, or look on eBay for a user named fred_fred_2004 or Biosciencegeek and get one of their cmoys. There's also the cmoyBB or O2 from JDS Labs: http://www.jdslabs.com/store/

 

[Airwolf]

Seems simple to me - when the DT990 arrive, plug them in. If the volume is too low, get an amp. As far as amps go - you could get a Schitt Magni for $100, or any of the Fiio amps, or look on eBay for a user named fred_fred_2004 or Biosciencegeek and get one of their cmoys. There's also the cmoyBB or O2 from JDS Labs: http://www.jdslabs.com/store/

 
Other than it being quiet, is there anything else that I should be on the look out for that an external amp would improve upon in conjunction with my sound card?

 

[manbear]

 
Other than it being quiet, is there anything else that I should be on the look out for that an external amp would improve upon in conjunction with my sound card?

Increased bass definition, larger soundstage, and general sense of increased clarity.

 

[Stillhart]

Any results to report on this one?

 

[Airwolf]

  Any results to report on this one?

 
 
Yeah, I bought a Schiit Vali and a JDS O2 and tried them both using the line out and 600 ohm output on my sound card.  Now I do have to say first and foremost that I am not an audiophile and I do not have extremely discerning ears.  That being said, I found that with both the Vali and the O2, the bass is much more clear.  When connected directly to the 600 ohm jack on my sound card, the bass would get all distorted at higher volumes and was generally not very pleasing.  Using the Vali and the O2 let me turn up the bass quite a bit and I got no distortion.  I think the O2 provides a little more bass.  The Vali, as expected, had a hissing noise that never went away.  I find that the sound seems more clear when using the 600 ohm output, rather than the line out on the card.
 
I ended up returning the Vali and keeping the O2 for several reasons:
 

1. The O2 can be left on all the time, which is a big deal to me because these headphones are permanently attached to my computer and I don't want to have to deal with turning an amp on and off every time I walk away for more than a few minutes.  When I did some calculations, I realized that the tubes in the Vali would only last for about 1-2 years if I left it on constantly.  This was a deal breaker for me.
2. I like that the O2 is very "transparent" in that it doesn't add any hissing or noise to the line when I use the headphones.

 
There are a few things I don't like about the O2, though:
 

1. I find that when watching movies and TV shows, I need to use the gain button to get the volume to where I would normally like it.  This is a small, inconsequential problem.
2. I do not like the fact that the power and audio inputs are on the front of the amp.  I know that the beauty of an open source design is that you can move the power and audio inputs to the back of the device, but I am too lazy, unskilled, and do not have the means to do such things on my own.  I emailed JDS labs about this and they said they have some new products coming out in 2014 that may interest me, but didn't go into any detail.

 
Overall, I think the money for the O2 was well spent and did make a significant difference in bass clarity and bass volume compared to using just the sound card.