Headphones or Soundcard?

[lemings]

I am thinking of upgrading something fairly soon, I have enough to get either the Creative X-FI Music, or the HD-280 pro headphones. Clearly I think the sound card would be the first choice, but I am using a 30 dollar pair of sony headphones at the moment. So which would you guys choose? Soundcard or headphones? -------------edit: Am using onboard sound currently

[four4875]

id say the headphones, then mod the caps on your current sound card, or build a cmoy amp for them.

http://www.afrotechmods.com/Reallycheap/soundcard/sennheiser.htm

but im not a pro, so a second or third opinion cant hurt!

[Arca_ex]

Well, I have the HD485's and I would say go for the soundcard, because if it sounds bad now, just wait until you hear all that badness in high and full detail, you hear every little snap crackle and pop with nice headphones.

[lemings]

Thanks for the input guys.

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

well, you're in kind of a dilemma

the headphones or speakers are the single most important element in your sound setup but with good headphones you most likely need a decent amp to drive them (absolutely with the HD280 Pro), onboard will make it sound really bad

what is your budget? maybe you can get the x-fi (which has mediocre opamps) and cheap but good phones (~$20-30) that will beat the Sony's into the ground

[four4875]

or the low impedance phones with a cheap cmoy amp? then the sound card wouldnt have a problem drivin them.

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

that would work too, but the source would still be subpar

[BloodbathMK]

get the headphones, the source can wait

[Nandro]

Being an audiophile I can say that a good pair of cans on a crappy source will just sound well... more crappy. go to www.headfi.org and do some research there. They will have much more info than i can possibly tell you and you'll be suprised at some of the parts that sound good for the price and what ones supposidy sound good that are considered turds.

[Arca_ex]

Well I just ordered some new speakers, and I said to myself "wow this is gonna sound like crap with my onboard" so i went ahead and got an Audigy 2 ZS, way better than my onboard (SB Live! 24-bit Audio)

[johan851]

You can probably do better than the HD-280's...a lot of people don't really like their sound. I'd also recommend you go check out www.headfi.org to see if the 280's are really what you want.

[Arca_ex]

I have the HD-485's and they are a pretty good bang for the buck deal. I got mine for $75 at Ultimate Electronics.