[Cali-kun]

Hello Head-Fi,

I have a bit of an odd series of questions regarding my setup.

I recently acquired a set of ATH-M50's and I am really enjoying them for portable music. I chose to get the coiled cable for mobility, and when I'm out it's really nice. However I have noticed that I have to stretch it out quite dramatically when the headphones are plugged into my computer's sound card (Sound Blaster Z). 
 
Now I had been considering purchasing a Fiio E5 for awhile now, so I was curious what would be a better option for me. Using the provided cables with an E5 to gain extra length and then plug that into my headphone jack of the sound card? How would affect the sound card?  Alternatively, looking into a 3 to 6 foot extension cable for the sound card and just use the E5 when I'm mobile. 
 
Now if I do go with the extension cable, I definitely want to find something won't cause me (much) sound loss for the M50's. Any suggestions?
 
Thanks for reading!

 

[PurpleAngel]

"Premium" 6ft 3.5mm extension cable.
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021813&p_id=5587&seq=1&format=2
 
I'm assuming the FiiO E5 is a much weaker headphone amplifier, then SB-Z's

 

[Cali-kun]

Awesome! Thank you PurpleAngel- you're so helpful!

I'll hold off on the external amp for the at-home setup. 
 
The cable you linked, that's safe and won't hurt anything with fidelity plugging that into my SBZ and then headphones into the extension?

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Awesome! Thank you PurpleAngel- you're so helpful!
I'll hold off on the external amp for the at-home setup. 
The cable you linked, that's safe and won't hurt anything with fidelity plugging that into my SBZ and then headphones into the extension?

You can't really know for sure until you try the cable, but I use extension cable and do not notice any problems with fidelity.
Besides, not really sure there is any other practical way to do the job.