[RXShadow]

  I don't know if you are in the USA or outside of it but you can find Sound blaster Omni at amazon and ebay between 40-60 dollars which would be a better choice then the U3. I also seen sound blaster Z's for around 50ish on ebay if your lucky. I have had a Asus Xonar DG and a DGX both are good card's but there better options which will help you in the long run since the Z and the omni headphone amp will be able to handle more headphone's giving you more choices. Where the DG/DGX headphone amp wont do justice to say headphones like DT770/880/990 pro-250 even tho some people like the combination, Where orders like them more with something that able to handle them more. If you do decide to get a AKG K701/Q701 it should do fine with the DG and DGX it just that later down on the road you might get something else that may not pair well with the DG/DGX.
 
Dolby headphone does work when it set up correctly, but at times i can find it bland in alot of game's where others it work nice and both depends on what headphones you are using. it worked nice with the AKG K702 and DT880 premium 600 for me, it didn't for A900X and DT880 pro-250 and T90 and the results can be very different for different people.Also Dolby headphone has echo even the ref mode has some echo while the mode 2 has alot of it and it uses echo to do virtual surround and you might not like that. SBX surround headphone may be a better bet for you since it doesn't use any form of echo, But you won't know for sure til you try it, as you might actually like dolby headphone or you might like SBX surround headphone, But both work correctly when the windows speaker settings and games are set to 5.1 with the control panel for either cards set to headphone.
 
The good thing about going external dac/amp that you can use a cheap sound card optical output to send something like Dolby headphone or SBX surround headphone into the dac and have both world's and that is a very common setup that people tend to do, if they want both Great audio and the Gaming function's.But most people tend to just pick one and the other.

 
Thanks for the advice. It's not easy for me to decide on a virtual surround considering this is the very first time I'm getting involved in such things. From the samples in youtube videos, I found both DH and SBX quite adequate really, but I'm pretty sure the experience is different once I actually go ingame with them.
 
I'm aware the DG/DGX are quite low on amp, which is why I considered pairing a U3 with a FiiO E17, which are also quite relatively easy for me to get. I don't live in the US, but I can take a look around and see if I can find a way to get the omni. The omni does seem very nice, with a good enough DAC/Amp to get 558 going. It seems the drivers are relatively better for windows as well. Having said that, I'll probably go for omni and give SBX a try. I could always add an amp to it later once I get another headphone. If not satisfied, I could always give the U3 + E17 a shot and try DH-2 as they're not expensive.
 
Once I get the purchase done and try it out, I'll also give my impressions.

 

[benbenkr]

On the topic of the omni. I was considering getting a SB-Z, but only being on a M-Atx motherboard this limits future SLI/CF options I was looking at the omni. I see it connects via USB, so my question is is there any sound distortion or interference from the USB source?

In my case the omni would feed via optical into a Schiit Modi and from there to a Schiit Vali into a pair of Q701's.

Anyone here running a similar setup? I would love to hear your opinions and experience.

 
It depends.
Many modern motherboards these days has its USB ports feed directly from the 5v rail of the PSU. Considering everything else is in order (the PSU being clean), you shouldn't get any distortion, pops, clicks, or cuts into an external source via USB.
 
However on the other hand, up until 2011, motherboards before that has poor implementation of USB ports. Some aren't even grounded properly (looking at you, Asrock of old) which could potentially lead to damage on the external source.
 
What motherboard are you using?

 

[Orihalcon]

   
It depends.
Many modern motherboards these days has its USB ports feed directly from the 5v rail of the PSU. Considering everything else is in order (the PSU being clean), you shouldn't get any distortion, pops, clicks, or cuts into an external source via USB.
 
However on the other hand, up until 2011, motherboards before that has poor implementation of USB ports. Some aren't even grounded properly (looking at you, Asrock of old) which could potentially lead to damage on the external source.
 
What motherboard are you using?

Thank you. Form what I've read that does seem to be the case.
 
I'm using an Asus Gene Vii. Which from all counts SHOULD have a properly isolated and fed USB layer.
 
Will wait for feedback from the poster above on the quality of the Omni. If it's good...that will be my choice. 

 

[Silverwind]

I picked up a soundblaster OMNI about two weeks ago. My headphones are Phillips fidelio X1's. Bass is tighter and has more impact. There seems to be enough power coming out of the OMNI where the onboard lacked impact. How does this compare to a dedicated amp? I don't know haven't had the opportunity to try. The SBX processing for games makes a noticeable difference. For sure worth the money. If I get the upgrade fever I can always add a Schiit magni.

 

[Orihalcon]

I picked up a soundblaster OMNI about two weeks ago. My headphones are Phillips fidelio X1's. Bass is tighter and has more impact. There seems to be enough power coming out of the OMNI where the onboard lacked impact. How does this compare to a dedicated amp? I don't know haven't had the opportunity to try. The SBX processing for games makes a noticeable difference. For sure worth the money. If I get the upgrade fever I can always add a Schiit magni.

Exactly what I wanted to hear! Thank you.

Now to find a place that will ship to South Africa

 

[benbenkr]

  Thank you. Form what I've read that does seem to be the case.
 
I'm using an Asus Gene Vii. Which from all counts SHOULD have a properly isolated and fed USB layer.
 
Will wait for feedback from the poster above on the quality of the Omni. If it's good...that will be my choice. 

 
The Gene VII is a good board, you have nothing to worry about.
 
Used to have an Omni, it's certainly good and due to the recent drop in prices, it's a very good deal too. Comparing to other external devices in the similar price range (Asus U7), the Omni is definitely better. The amp on the headphone out is essential enough, an optical out port means you can use SBX with another higher end DAC with optical in should you go that route in the future.
 
So yeah, you really lose nothing by getting an Omni. Go for it.

 

[AvroArrow]

All this talk about the Omni has got me curious enough to want to try SBX now.  Before I go buy one I've got a question for current owners.  Does the Omni work with WASAPI and/or ASIO drivers over it's SPDIF Optical output?  I know most people use it as is, or maybe hook up an amp to the RCA output, but I'd like to use it just as a SBX encoder and pipe the output to an external optical DAC & amp.  My current X-Fi Titanium (SB0880) does NOT work with WASAPI or ASIO over optical out, it actually completely freezes my Win7 box when I try it with foobar2000. 

 

[Orihalcon]

  All this talk about the Omni has got me curious enough to want to try SBX now.  Before I go buy one I've got a question for current owners.  Does the Omni work with WASAPI and/or ASIO drivers over it's SPDIF Optical output?  I know most people use it as is, or maybe hook up an amp to the RCA output, but I'd like to use it just as a SBX encoder and pipe the output to an external optical DAC & amp.  My current X-Fi Titanium (SB0880) does NOT work with WASAPI or ASIO over optical out, it actually completely freezes my Win7 box when I try it with foobar2000. 

 
This is one thing I made sure of that it could do, and it can. Using the optical out from the pod it can send 5.1 surround sound output to whatever you'll be using.

 

[Silverwind]

All this talk about the Omni has got me curious enough to want to try SBX now.  Before I go buy one I've got a question for current owners.  Does the Omni work with WASAPI and/or ASIO drivers over it's SPDIF Optical output?  I know most people use it as is, or maybe hook up an amp to the RCA output, but I'd like to use it just as a SBX encoder and pipe the output to an external optical DAC & amp.  My current X-Fi Titanium (SB0880) does NOT work with WASAPI or ASIO over optical out, it actually completely freezes my Win7 box when I try it with foobar2000. 

Check a few of the posts here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/623079/creative-sound-blaster-new-series-z-zx-zxr/2145

 

[AvroArrow]

   
This is one thing I made sure of that it could do, and it can. Using the optical out from the pod it can send 5.1 surround sound output to whatever you'll be using.

Passing through the CMSS-3D through SPDIF works fine on my X-Fi Ti since it's using the default Windows DirectSound driver.  That's not the problem I have, it's the 2nd part where I'm trying to use foobar2000's WASAPI drivers (for regular FLAC stereo music playback) AND doing the pass through over SPDIF that crashes my PC.
 

Check a few of the posts here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/623079/creative-sound-blaster-new-series-z-zx-zxr/2145

Thanks for the link.  I was setup exactly like what TwoEars listed with my X-Fi Ti and when foobar2000 is set to use WASAPI (event): SB SPDIF it will crash my PC as soon as I click Play on any song.  That's why I'm asking if this setup actually works on the Omni, unlike my X-Fi Ti. 

 

[Orihalcon]

Passing through the CMSS-3D through SPDIF works fine on my X-Fi Ti since it's using the default Windows DirectSound driver.  That's not the problem I have, it's the 2nd part where I'm trying to use foobar2000's WASAPI drivers (for regular FLAC stereo music playback) AND doing the pass through over SPDIF that crashes my PC.

Ah. My apologies. I misunderstood.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  All this talk about the Omni has got me curious enough to want to try SBX now.  Before I go buy one I've got a question for current owners.  Does the Omni work with WASAPI and/or ASIO drivers over it's SPDIF Optical output?  I know most people use it as is, or maybe hook up an amp to the RCA output, but I'd like to use it just as a SBX encoder and pipe the output to an external optical DAC & amp.  My current X-Fi Titanium (SB0880) does NOT work with WASAPI or ASIO over optical out, it actually completely freezes my Win7 box when I try it with Foobar2000. 

 
In Windows, under Control Panel>Sound>Playback tab, it should give you the option that allows digital audio to pass thru the Titanium's optical port, while bypassing the Titanium's audio processor/features, I would assume it would fix the freezing issue.
Then when you want to use the Titanium features you just go back to the Playback tab and enable (Titanium Speaker) sound card output. 

 

[Viceroy]

On the X-Fi Titanium HD, does CMSS-3D Headphone work fine if you use the RCA out?

 

[Fegefeuer]

Yes

 

[Viceroy]

Thanks. I thought it might have distorted the sound or something. Glad to have this cleared up.