[WaveRider69]

You guys I freaking LOVE THIS CARD the sound is INCREDIBLE IT BLOWS ME AWAY, I haven't heard this kind of sound (going out on the town excluded) since a few years ago decking out my ride with an alpine system but no longer have it anymore, thanks so much to this forum for being a part in leading me in this direction

OK so I was wondering some stuff.

-I have ATH-AD700's 32ohm. Level 2 amp gain sounds awesome but is rated at 60-300ohms. Level 1 sounds like poop. Is it ok to run level 2 with my 32ohm headphones??? In my mind I am assuming as long as I don't let them distort they will be ok right?

-Does anyone have any input or experience on the diff in sound of changing the op amps on this card? If I were to try this out what are the good ones to go with?

-Can I plug an eq into the back of this card?

-How are all my settings is there anything I should change etc?

I really like Winamp with their customizations and especially milkdrop 2.2, is foobar better, or something else? For sound quality. I don't use the media player's eq, but the waveout driver in winamp is that bypassed by the xonar? So, If I want to use winamp what are the best settings I should use etc?


I posted some pics to make things easier

 

[eneloquent]

Your winamp output plugin is your weak link.

Go here, get this;
Assorted Steve Monks Related Stuff
I think you will like the results.

 

[WaveRider69]

DUDE!!! YOU RULE MAN!

It took me a few minutes to notice a diff at first. I noticed a little bit of clarity difference for sure, but it wasn't until I was messing around between tracks and cut the winamp volume down to 50% while going back and forth between drivers and then I noticed with this it was bypassed completely. Freakin awesome that's exactly what I was looking for something like this! This is sweet so this just skips all the junk and goes right through the xonar this way then right? I did some quick read on that site, have to finish later.

I'm messing with it now and I can actually play with higher freqs on the xonar EQ without going def! Certain bands before I wasn't able to bump at all without it getting so harsh it was fatiguing, like 4k & 8k, the slightest movements before caused massive sound change, now it seems I can play with the eq naturally. The sound is also more clean and pure right on!!

Awesome thanks a lot for showing me this man I'm going to be playing with this later tonight for sure haha

 

[WaveRider69]

Holy crap man I am hearing things in my music I've never heard before

 

[freestyler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WaveRider69 /img/forum/go_quote.gif One - I have ATH-AD700's 32ohm. Level 2 amp gain sounds awesome but is rated at 60-300ohms. Level 1 sounds like poop. Is it ok to run level 2 with my 32ohm headphones??? In my mind I am assuming as long as I don't let them distort they will be ok right?

Watch out cause i own a headset i use regularly which is rated at 16 Ω impedance and using the middle setting in xonar i almost fried the headphones.
I pumped up the volume and suddenly the volume dropped like if i went the slider to 1 from windows manually.
I went back to the first gain immediately but every few secs the sound was going up and down on headphones.
I rested them for a day and now they have no problems but i'm edit: NOT trying the "high gain" on them again.

 

[WaveRider69]

^^ good call yeah I definitely want to keep these babies in great shape. Cheap ass headphones I never cared and I would push them to the extreme but that was because well they sound like ass any other way lol. I love so much that I am able to listen at even the lowest volume levels and everything still sounds so freaking awesome, I've never in my life had this experience with headphones. I am a headphone inexperienced though.

These particular phones don't sound good on the first setting it just sounds very weak, level 2 makes me a happy man haha

I've been tinkering. I am seeking more powerful sound through the low end at least to maximize these as much as I can before testing out some more advanced pairs of cans

So I have tested level 3 amp just out of curiosity. The first time it didn't sound right the phones were too new, but now it's almost like they are asking me for more. So get this, at the same high audible volume levels, amp 3 sounds more powerful (obviously lol) but it also seems to clean the music up a bit where as on level 2 I would sometimes hear "slight" artifacts. To me this makes perfect sense in the loudspeaker world but I know nothing about headphones and these crazy ohms. I am used to 1-8ohms doing car and home stuff. The thing that makes me wonder though is say level 2 for ex is rated for 64-300ohm phones which is a huge gap so there is obviously a lot of leeway but then it says +12DB which makes me think of just turning up a preamp knob which makes me assume it will be fine as long as we don't push it to distortion, what confuses me is the ohms, so I have no idea haha

When you were testing yours out was it distorting or did it sound awesome and then just all of a sudden started acting weird?

 

[giedrys]

I use Essence ST with Denon D2000, which are 32ohm. However, the card doesn't provide enough juice from the lowest setting, so i use high gain +12db for 64-300ohms.

I don't know if this is sensitivity issue, but with lowest(theoretically correct) setting D2000 feels way underpowered.

 

[WaveRider69]

Cool I thought so. I started thinking about all these higher end low impedance cans and thought there's no way they'd be running them without gain. Definitely, the diff is night and day. Cool

 

[leeperry]

you guys tried the line-out as well? actually the manual advises to plug your headphones on the line-out, hah.

 

[giedrys]

I tried and went right back to headphone-out for reasons stated above. Others also mentioned that supposedly line-out sounded better. I didn't noticed that, probably because my ears aren't golden enough by Head-Fi standards

 

[ROBSCIX]

The line out does not have enough power to drive headphones with high needs.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by giedrys /img/forum/go_quote.gif I tried and went right back to headphone-out

well, all the phones don't need the same gain...my uber-sensitive cd1k only needs a gain of 2 to be happy...and comparing the lowest gain on the HP amp and the line-out was a no brainer

 

[ROBSCIX]

If you under or overpower your cans they will not sound their best. This is where some get into trouble with this card. They are unsure how to set it up and either use too little gain and claim it is veiled or use too much gian and claim it is fatiguing, too bright etc. Use the proper gain amunt for your cans and it sounds as it should.

 

[wali]

ATH-AD700 has a sensitivity of 98db, which means you were correct to use the 64-300ohms setting to give the headphone that extra power.

Edit: Enable hi fi. it disables all dsps.

 

[stoutblock]

I never liked the sound of this card connected to headphones directly. Maybe good for computer standards but you have to have a good HP amp to make good HPs sing...