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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: krull on Sat, 07 May 2011, 13:41:04
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I'm looking to purchase an amp and sound card to make better use of my akg 240's. Ive currently been using them with the default sound on my rampage 3. Anyone have any ideas about what I should get? Money isn't too much of a concern, but I would like to keep it under 300-350 USD.
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Many will recommend the Xonar ST(PCI though I believe it works with the PCIe-to-PCI bridge) or the STX; technically ST > STX. You'll be hard pressed to find a better amp/dac combo for the price of the XST and it's amp works just fine at driving 600ohm setting(despite those who say the contrary).
If not you better do your research before going out and getting external amp/dacs as there is a ****load of equipment out there; you can always get a lower end soundcard to act as a source and pass it through external. But you'll run into people mentioning the ST/X for the price being a hard to beat bargain. Though Asus did mention they will be releasing an external unit the xonar essence one (http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/542563/asus-essence-one-headphone-amp-dac-cebit-2011) though it hasn't been released yet nor any mention of when.
As for the 595, you can always buy the 555s and mod them to 595 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvQ8PzBrHXE) since they both have identical drivers and save yourself some money or go for the AD700s if your not into the 555/595.
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Looking it up, it seems the Asus Rampage III uses a Realtek ALC889, which if implemented decently (and with the drivers working right) actually is a very usable affair. A run of RMAA to check for resampling (make sure sample rate is set up correctly in newer versions of Windows) and usage with some more sensitive headphones to check for fuzz and buzz should be sufficient to get a reasonably good impression of how it performs. If it does well, chances are that audible differences between this and a "real" soundcard won't be present.
K240S' (much like 50 ohm HD595/598s) are a little fussy when it comes to amplifier output impedance - you'll want 10 ohms at most, with less being desirable. Most serious amps will be at <= 10 ohms, but you have to look a little harder for something that does <= 1 or 2 ohms. I know for sure that Jan Meier's Corda Swing (*) is one of them (along with Lake People amps, RSA's Hornet, iBasso T4 and P4, and the iBasso D12 is at a fairly low ~2 ohms still so only critical multi-driver IEMs will be bothered). Not sure about FiiO's E9, it's fairly different from its portable cousins E5 and E7 (which do have very low-impedance outputs).
(*) Not to be replaced once stock runs out, sadly.
Soundcard wise, you usually won't get terribly wrong with one of Asus' own internal offerings, assuming you don't get any driver issues. A DX or D2X is a fine card with excellent parts quality. (I don't quite remember which feature the D1/DX didn't have, I think it was DDL.)
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Damn the price of a quality amp is pretty astounding. Shows how ignorant i am i guess. I appreciate the feedback, but I'm going to have to put this purchase on hold for a little bit. Since I just broke down and purchased a Happy Hacking keyboard.
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sorry i'm going to have to disagree.
I think u need to buy HRT MUSICSTREAMER II + MATRIX M-STAGE. that a pretty good combo for the budget minded peoples.
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I only jitter in private. Its hard when there are people watching.
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I would recommend a halo claro, it has a built in headphone amp and also the customer support and sound is great! Swappable opamps are not bad too :) get some burr brown op amps(aka Texas Instruments now)