[Caution]

G'day guys I recently got a pair of Alessandro MS-1's shipped from the USA to Australia and am relatively happy, the only thing thats stopping me from being more happy is my sound card, which is an old Sound blaster Live! Budget OEM piece of junk I had lying around.

Now this is my first set of "good" cans And I hope to get the most juice out of them. Now my question is Am I better off getting a Bluegears B-enspirer soundcard or a Chaintech AV-710 with a DAC for my headphones or something? I have No experiences with DACs and have also read that the MS-1s don't really benefit from headphone amps so I'm quite confused here...

Could you guys recommend me some stuff that I should look at. I have a limited budget of around ~180-200 USD.

Thanks guys

 

[Knockturne]

Headroom Total Bithead - $150. It's an amp and DAC, you can connect it to your computer by USB, and it's portable.

 

[Caution]

mm oh rite I'll take a look at that one.

So generally a DAC is better than a good soundcard in terms of sound quality?

 

[UltraEvo]

Can't say that anymore after knowing the Onkyo soundcards.

 

[Hardwired]

I started out using the line out of a Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card. Once I switched to an external USB transport and DAC I could not believe how much better the music sounded. I had to dial my subwoofer back 5 notches because there was so much more bass, and the highs and depth of the music in general were so much better. Then you add a nice pair of headphones and it gets even better.

Upgrading from a Sound Blaster Live! to the Total Bithead will make your headphones sound like a new pair all over again. Of course you can always upgrade again from there...

 

[Caution]

lol nice avatar Hardwired

Hrm... It seems like they don't sell the Total bithead in Australia... I don't really want to order from the US either. Are there any other suggestions? Or Should i just go for the B-enspirer?

 

[ChaseD13]

headphone.com ships international i believe. i dont think they screw you on shipping.

 

[aerowing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caution /img/forum/go_quote.gif mm oh rite I'll take a look at that one. So generally a DAC is better than a good soundcard in terms of sound quality?

Depend on the price range. When you get to higher price range DAC is more cost effective in term of music listening since it is dedicated to it. But on the lower price range you get the whole package with a sound card and the on-board dac of the sound card may be similar to dac you can get in similar price range. I've heard people comparing output of m-audio ap192, esi juli@ and entry level musiland dac concluing that the difference is small and not worth the extra burcks.

But you also need an amp and that's another story

 

[Caution]

Hrm.... I have a feeling shipping from Headphone.com would be quite expensive which is a real bummer

I Guess I should just get a B-Enspirer and get a DAC later on...

*edit* Ok Looks like the bithead is an option now

So what should I get a B-enspirer or a Bithead?