[EWarren]

Hi everyone,
 
After reading some posts on Beyerdynamic DT880 vs 990 vs 770, I am leaning toward buying a Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (250 ohms) headphone for my upgraded PC equipped with an Asus Xonar D1T soundcard.
 
I am really new to the high end audio stuff... my past headphone was a plantronic that attached to my old PC's on-board soundcard until I decided to do some upgrade.  Since I play games, I think I should stick with my Xonar D1 for its hardware acceleration.
 
 
Some posts say the Xonar D1 comes with a headphone amp but it is not powerful enough to drive a 250 ohms (enough to drive a 32 ohms).  If that is the case, should I attach a Fiio E9 desktop amp to my sound card, then plug the DT880 into the amp?  I am kind of confused on whether an amp would work on top of a soundcard.  If that amp is not good enough for DT880, I would appreciate any thoughts on a better unit.
 
Thanks! 

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

After reading some posts on Beyerdynamic DT880 vs 990 vs 770, I am leaning toward buying a Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (250 ohms) headphone for my upgraded PC equipped with an Asus Xonar D1T soundcard.
I am really new to the high end audio stuff... my past headphone was a plantronic that attached to my old PC's on-board soundcard until I decided to do some upgrade.  Since I play games, I think I should stick with my Xonar D1 for its hardware acceleration.
Some posts say the Xonar D1 comes with a headphone amp but it is not powerful enough to drive a 250 ohms (enough to drive a 32 ohms).  If that is the case, should I attach a Fiio E9 desktop amp to my sound card, then plug the DT880 into the amp?  I am kind of confused on whether an amp would work on top of a sound card.  If that amp is not good enough for DT880, I would appreciate any thoughts on a better unit.

The Xonar D1 with Fiio E9 is fine.
The Xonar D1 does not come with any headphone amplifier, the green hole is more like a line-out (high impedance) you can plug headphones into.
You can get away with headphone up to around 80-Ohm plugged directly into the D1's green hole.
The Fiio E9 is about equal wise to the headphone amplifier in the Essence STX/ST.