Assistance setting up an amplifier / headphones / PC combo.

[Verios]

Evening Gents!

So I've recently decided to give some entry level higher end headphones a try. I've done a bit of reading into it and the general consensus is that having an amplifier is a good thing.

The headphones I've purchased are the "Audio-Technica A500" and the AMP I'm considering is the "HeadRoom Total AirHead Amplifier". My current sound card in my computer is an "Auzentech X-FI Prelude". Now then, I'm not overly tech-savy or anything along those lines when it comes to the audio department. I've somewhat drawn a little diagram of how I believe I'm suppose to hook these bloody things up:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2725/testcopycc1.jpg

I realize this probably a very easy thing to do, but I've never used an AMP before and rather than risk damaging my equipment, I figured I'd double check with you all.

I've already ordered the headphones, but I've yet to decided on an amplifier. Any assistance you can offer in the amplifier department, or anything along those lines would be very much appreciated!

Thank you for your time everyone!

[Theocnoob]

Evening Gents!

So I've recently decided to give some entry level higher end headphones a try. I've done a bit of reading into it and the general consensus is that having an amplifier is a good thing.

The headphones I've purchased are the "Audio-Technica A500" and the AMP I'm considering is the "HeadRoom Total AirHead Amplifier". My current sound card in my computer is an "Auzentech X-FI Prelude". Now then, I'm not overly tech-savy or anything along those lines when it comes to the audio department. I've somewhat drawn a little diagram of how I believe I'm suppose to hook these bloody things up:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2725/testcopycc1.jpg

I realize this probably a very easy thing to do, but I've never used an AMP before and rather than risk damaging my equipment, I figured I'd double check with you all.

I've already ordered the headphones, but I've yet to decided on an amplifier. Any assistance you can offer in the amplifier department, or anything along those lines would be very much appreciated!

Thank you for your time everyone!

No worries.

You run a cable from the soundcard to the amp, and the amp to the headphones.

That's about it.

One thing I will say though is that you're slightly screwing your listening experience over if you do anything other than watch movies and game. For music listening Xfi is still crappy- even if you run it through a really nice Auzen card, because you are still stuck at 48000Khz 24bit listening to 44100Khz 16/32bit sound.

When you try to interlace those samplerates you will lose sound information inevitably.

[Verios]

Another fellow from Guru3d had mentioned that I may not even need an AMP, that the Auzentech X-FI Prelude would be able to drive those headphones pretty easily (not quite sure what he meant by that).

I'm assuming it would still be advisable to get one? To further improved sound quality ... or would there really be no reason if the above is true?

Oh, and yes .. I mostly game when I'm on my computer :)

[Sir Barton]

For music listening Xfi is still crappy- even if you run it through a really nice Auzen card, because you are still stuck at 48000Khz 24bit listening to 44100Khz 16/32bit sound.

When you try to interlace those samplerates you will lose sound information inevitably.
The X-Fi is actually the first Creative card to natively support 16-bit/44.1KHz. I wouldnt necessarily say it sucks for music, but there are better (and cheaper) solutions out there better suited to music listening. For music listening on the X-Fi, set it to Content Creation Mode, set the sample rate to 44.1KHz, and check bit-matched playback...then youre in business. If you want even better sound, use Foobar2000 with the ASIO plugin.

[tom10167]

Can you get a sound card with a line out? The Prelude's outputs are all powered which detracts from the goodness of such a good amp.