Yes, my primary and most often use case is gaming. From your message I understood that AE-5 is good for me, I get that. But next thing you say is If I want to guarantee a lot of performance, I should buy U3 and DAC-HPamp too? I'm very likely to order AE-5 for 139 euros and then maybe perhaps once it arrives, think a bit and order the NFB.
No, I'm saying if you're really just going to be gaming and barely doing any critical listening, you might as well just go with the AE-5.
If you'll do critical music listening with no distractions (ie no browsing, no working, etc), then get the U3 and the NFB-11.
Of course trying the AE-5 first means you can add the NFB-11 later
if you feel like you'd spend that much more to get an amp circuit that runs in full Class A, lower distortion, no crossover distortion, lower noise...
Sorry, I was unclear. I did open my case and my GPU that is a single GTX 1080 Ti takes 2.5 of the PCI-e slots. I have one smaller PCi-e slot very visible and could connect AE-5 easily.
Or use the lowest one so you don't obstruct any airflow into the GTX 1080Ti.
Okay, so today I received my AKG K712 Pro's. I still don't understand how same my headphones still sound on my favourite game that is Rainbow Six Siege. I'm no audiophile any means, all I could notice was sounds were not as flat as on HD 650 and larger soundstage, but nothing breath taking.
Well...what exactly were you expecting to be "breath taking" about gaming audio? Gaming SFX and speech are synthesized sounds in MP3 format, which aren't exactly the same as music. One will have basically the same sounds repeated all over, and each MP3 explosion or gunfire will not sound as drastically different as the reverberations of the notes coming out of a guitar or a soprano going up several octaves or the difference in detail when a metal drummer goes on the double pedals where distortion or just plain response variances can change how the notes come in and fade out (ex if the bass is excessive at the low end the initial impact can seem soft but the notes take too long to fade out the double pedals seem slow or muddled). Apart from response differences between headphones and speakers, it would have to be drastically higher levels of distortion and noise to hear any difference in how one explosion or gunfire SFX will sound different from one system to another.
As for imaging, there are two problems. As much as other people will claim they only need a wider imaging headphone and not virtual surround, in my case I'd rather have virtual surround on cheaper headphones than a headphone that does well in imaging but mostly works better for 2ch audio than 2ch gaming audio. One images a soundstage, or at least tries to within a context of each ear hearing only one driver (one of the things that Crossfeed for 2ch audio and Virtual Surround for multicahnnel audio addresses), the other is supposed to have enveloping sound but in 2ch mode right off the bat, it can barely do that (note that even with VS it won't make for very clear reproduction for sounds behind you)
The other problem though might be the same with 2ch - imaging is usually the last thing that people realize is important (or that it even is a thing), and in your application, can be worsened by the fact that you're getting practically zero positioning cues off native 2ch gaming audio (that no virtual surround can fix, hence why the game needs to be set to 5.1 if your'e using a soundcard for VS).
Overall this is kind of a bigger problem. It's hard to tell if virtual surround will be perceptible for you,but on the other hand if you're not even using it given 2ch gaming audio barely has any positional cues, then that's a problem.
Although there are two ways to test that. First, check your games and look for one that might have a specific "Headphone" audio mode other than plain "Stereo." Try them both. Second is to listen to a properly recorded piano or drum track. If you can hear enough of a difference in how much wider if also deeper the AKG does, then likely you'll benefit from a soundcard that does virtual surround.
I connected K712 Pro to my current DacMagic XS and with this thing I can only skyrocket the volume. Audio quality is exactly the same when I connected K712 Pro's to my case 3.5mm headphone jack. Does this mean my DacMagic XS never bypassed my motherboards audio?
OK...first off...it has to have bypassed your motherboard audio, because if it can't then how is it connected? If it was connected via analogue connection then sure, the motherboard's DAC is working. But if you connected it via USB then it bypasses the motherboard's DAC since the DAC doesn't output via USB nor can your Digital to Analogue Converter accept an analogue output from the motherboard's DAC. Any sound shaping software can't be bypassed unless you disabled them but I don't think these are at play here.
As for why that is, it's simply because the performance of the DAC Magic XS and the motherboard aren't that far off. Now as to whether that's because Asus put a fairly decent audio section in there save for not having a good DSP or because the DACMagic sucks, the first is more likely. However I can't dismiss the possibility that the latter is also possible because I'm not exactly a fan of Cambridge Audio stuff. I got to try the DACMagic and it was pretty lethargic on my HD600, and then I tried their CDPs with my headphone amp and headphones, and they were imaging the percussion in front of the vocals.
Alternately, it's not impossible either that both the motherboard and the XS are boosting the low end (likely due to a high enough output impedance), or that you're not listening at a loud enough level to push the XS to distort, while the motherboard outright runs out of power but because it just doesn't have enough gain, it doesn't get loud enough that you can hear obvious clipping of the signal (ex like how hard bass hits can sound more like a thwack!!! instead of a THUD!!!).
Another factor there again is the listener, and also the material. You've only tested it so far on MP3 sound effects. The material to begin with lacks the more subtle nuances that can differentiate one reproduction of notes from another that are harder to hear in explosions and gunfire and such, or the differences are minute enough to be undetectable to you (though they might be for others, but more likely with music than with SFX).
If I do order AE-5, will I see notably differences? Well doesn't matter, I'm really tempted to buy AE-5 anyways for the price of 138 €. Atleast it is better than DacMagic XS, right? And then maybe a little later buy as well the NFB-11.28.
Hard to tell but again, it's hard to tell whether most are just imperceptible to you, or whether it's because 2ch program on games aren't really going to make much of a difference between systems given that barely has positional cues and how explosions aren't going to noticeably vary the way music notes would, not to mention your attention span on gaming is split between the audio, your objectives, fragging, and not getting fragged, plus the visuals on the monitor, whereas normally even those who listen with some distractions like web browsing would still deal with lot fewer things while listening to music.
Still, if your goal is positional audio, then a good headphone for that running with virtual surround is still the best it can get barring setting up 5.1 speakers.
