Asus or Creative sound card?

The ZxR has a lot of surround crap and a useless hub, sound is much better with the headphones connected straight to the board, same as with my crappy Xonar Phoebus.

If you really want to have a nice card for recording and the afterwards mixing the Essence is really the best consumer card before your going for more professional options.

What are you recording, using mic, line signal ??
You can do that straight with your X-Fi ,just get the right cables.

 

I would like spdif in, rca ins and outs (red and white), plus anything else the card has to offer. don't need midi, I have a usb cable for that.

Also, any recommendations for speakers? kind of mid range, up to 200 dollars as a budget.

 

That depends on the heaphones tbh, My phoebus can`t drive my HD-650 and HE-500 cans properly. The cans require more power than a sound card amp can deliver.

 

As a former Phoebus user, I have to agree. Ever since switching to the Magni 2/Modi 2 Ubers, my DT-880 Pro sound better. It's not night and day better, but it's a noticeable difference in sound clarity.

 

I still got my Phoebus, I`m using the toslink cable from the phoebus to the Bifrost Uber. I let my kid plug in his cans some monoprice model lower end cans to the phoebus headphone amp. I agree the dt880 pro sound better with proper amplification. Have them as well.

 

Go Asus. I regret ever buying my ZxR. **** doesn't get detected 70% of the times when I cold boot, come out of sleep or hibernation. When it works I got to make sure to not ever turn off my computer because it will be hell trying to get it to work again. I contacted them twice when it was under warranty and didnt say anything. Now that its not under warranty they tell me I might have to replace the card for its full price.

**** them.

 

Even if you up the amplifier level?

 

You don't need spdif in to transfer pre recorded data to your computer, the only thing I could see a use for it, is when you want to get recordings from DAT into your PC.

As for speakers, go for something with a 5" driver, examples:

Edifier Studio R1800 TII or TII (I got the TII, you get a lot for you money with these)

Next 3 are mono block units:

Mackie MR5 Mk3
JBL LSR 305
YAMAHA HS5 - HS7 (these rumors to be really good)

If you can afford it, go for YAMAHA HS5 or even better HS7, every review I have seen declares them to be the best in their class.
Just keep in mind, price is pr. unit when you look at mono blocks, since they have separate amp pr. speaker.


Also check out the Focusrite Scarlett series.

 

HE-500 needs alot of current to be driven correctly which means you need a schiit magni2 or a asgard 2 as it is a planar headphone, so no sound card will make the HE-500 shine or he HE-400/i . Its not about volume as it can be loud all it want, if it sound bad and not like it suppose to be then its not driven fully.

 

Yeah the he-500 needs a good dedicated amp for it to work the best.
The hd650 also needs a lot of power as well and they scale better with a more powerful amp. Vahalla 2 is a good choice with the hd650 as they supply more power at 300ohms than an asgard 2. hd650 sounds much better on asgard 2 then it does on the phoebus amp. Headphone amps do not supply enough power for a lot of cans. my dt880 pro 250 ohm sounds better on a dedicated amp as well.

 

Ah, we are talking a bit past each other here.
While these are good cans for gaming and listening to certain types of music they are utter **** for mixing a master and also for recording instruments.

Taking some AKG cans as example:
The best cans for mixing don't go beyond 70 Ohm (AKG-701 etc.), neither do the cans you wear while recording (AKG-550 etc.).

http://www.yourbrainwavz.com/hm5.html puts a lot of high end names to shame regarding studio work btw.
They are more neutral than AKG-240, Audio-Technica ATH-M50 and other studio headphones that cost way more.

So the headphone amp on the soundcard does fine as long as you don't use high Ohm HI-FI cans.

 

Who here is talking about cans for mixing and recording? Please do tell.

It sounds to me like you're desperate to be right. You've been proven wrong two times so far. Midrange headphones and above need beefier amps to sound better, something soundcards cannot provide. What's so hard? HE-500 and the likes are some of the best sounding headphones you can buy, period. There's no headphones good for "gaming", "movies", a good sounding headphone sounds good anywhere.

 

The OP talks about recording and mixing, see:

For that you do not want the best sounding headphones, you do not want any frequency range hyped for that, as neutral as possible is the way to go, do I need to explain why?

 

HE-500 is 38 ohms and HE400i are 35 ohm btw and cannot be run properly on a sound card amp.

 

Actually there are plenty cans out there that you can use for monitor that are higher ohm headphones and are neutral and transparent like the DT880 premium 600 that will also show you any faults in the music and are detailed too and I have used for creating music my self, As well the Beyerdynamic T90 which is 250ohm's which are tad bright but very detailed which was the last headphone I owned.

I also used to have a pair of AKG K702's which I have also used when i created music but I didn't like what they did to the sound stage when they made it ultra super wide plus their bass was tight but thin. Where Audio Technica A900X unlike the AKG, worked very well for music creation. They all worked very well for gaming. I would suggest the Audio Technica A900X for the op needs as they are very good for the op purpose and If I recalled i seen them going for 100-153 if on ebay and amazon. They will run on any source as long it is good.

I use my HE-500 right now for creating music besides enjoying music and playing games. They work great for monitoring too but of course they cost a arm and a leg do to the fact you have to pair them with a very very strong headphone amp, one that can supply 1W to them as they are current hungry headphone. They are very Neutral and transparent and will really show you how well you created your songs including all the flaws, it will let you hear how you recorded/mixed your songs exactly.

Planar headphones in general are current hogs. So with them you have to use a external headphone amp other wise they wont sound right at all and will even sound bad, which why you can't use planars like HE-400/i,HE-500 or even audzee planars with a sound card headphone amp. As the sound card hp amp will not supply enough current to driven them correctly. they can get loud but sound bad until you plug them into a strong headphone amp.

AKG's are more sensitive and are dynamic headphones so they don't take much to be driven.The Audio Technica's doesn't need to be amped at all because of them being very sensitive so they will work from any source as long it is a good one.

Hifiman HE-400/i,HE-500,HE-560,HE6 , Audzee LCD1-3 etc all are planar headphones all of those need a very strong headphone amp and must be used with one if you want to do any of them any justice so they will sound the way they should. Don't let their low ohm's fool you, you don't treat them like normal headphones they use magnetic driver's that's why they need alot of current and not voltage to be driven correctly. If you plug them into a sound card then they will be heavily under powered and will not perform the way they should. Thats what I was trying to say. I didn't say sound card hp amp are trash, I was saying they wont do justice for planar based headphones.

 

I'm not talking about the OP. I'm talking about this statement:

You don't need an external headphone amp, waste of money, both got a 600 Ohm amp, plus for music listening you should know that your best of with the Essence, go for the STX II.

which is false.

As for what headphones to choose for recording or mixing, THAT is not the topic here. So an external amp cannot be useless if the headphones to be used for mixing and mastering are unknown yet.

 

Well now days the two are not that expensive. So I have both. So when it comes to sound, music so forth.. its nice to have more then one...haha still have my old Mt 32.