Do I need a DAC/AMP combo...

Hey Guys,

I just purchased a pair of sennhieser HD 600's because I wanted to really experience my music. I have an ASUS Maximus impact that has a sound card that is capable of pushing 600 ohms or so they say. This is my first pair of real headphones and Im not sure if I need a DAC or Amp to power theses beast. I am looking at the Audioengine D1 and it has rave reviews but Im not certain it will enhance my mp3's or games because it talks alot about Flac files. Any input on this would be really nice since I am a noob at audio stuff but I have 13,686 songs in iTunes.

Just try it. Most likely it will work just fine.

Screw it, I just bought the Audio engine D1

Note that you'll need a fiber cable (pretty cheap, a few dollars) to get the best performance since it only supports up to 96kHz over USB and USB in general is suboptimal for gaming. Don't bother with an external PSU for it unless you get a lab grade unit - most wall warts put out more noise than a PC's USB port.

I have a set of Monster Optical and Phillips Optical cables... I'm not sure which one is better but the Phillips feels a lot thicker and has a better build quality.

Monster is known for being overpriced, except sometimes on sale. Either cable will work, and for that matter, a cheap cable will work just as well. Audio is so low of a bitrate that even the cheapest fiber will carry it just fine.

digital is digital

Unless it's converted to analog.

It's fully digital on the fiber.

Ok if its fully digital on fiber optic then what happens when it gets to the DAC? Does it not get converted to analog which is then sent to my headphones.

It will, what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter which optical cable you use as the 1s and 0s will be the same. For the same reason buying a $50 and $3 HDMI cable will give the same results.

I had both cables laying around from my old home theater system that used to be top notch in Early 2000's. I'm sure the cables are still fine since the were layed flat in my spare closet. I'm looking forward to tonight when the ups and ontrac man show up... If my 12 hours at work would just go by faster.

Well, I own the D1. Just recvd the replacement not 2 days ago. The first one would show up as unrecognized every time I turned it on. My only question is, does the output from pc in regards to the playback control matter if using the toslink cable? There are various output settings available and my flac is primarily 16bit 44100. I have it set to just that but am not sure exactly what the dac does nor if my setting even matters. Settings are from 16 44100 - 24 192000, plus DTS interactive 5.1 surround which didn't work at all. I'm using an hdmi cable to the monitor but plan on going back to dvi when I can find the cable and using the hdmi out for a new tv (not bought yet).

My headphones came with an extension cable with a short lead and now I know why. It's for when you accidentally pull on them.

Most digital content is fine with 48kHz sampling frequenzy. Some high end blue ray music players and uncompressed music would benefit greatly from the higher sampling rate and 24bit output but on PC use it is rare to encounter such media. Some lossless compression can arguably sound better with higher sampling. Higher sampling rates add more latency to the sound output and in some cases can cause buffer overruns.
As for USB vs coaxial digital vs optical digital the answer would in most cases be optical.
Some USB DACs such as Cambridge Dacmagic plus support ASIO over USB wich would be better than than the traditional digital inputs when using programs that support that feature.
Why use fiber? It separates the PC and DAC electrically and eliminates any grounding issues or noises. With properly designed devices or devices that allow ground lift it really doesn't matter which input type you use.

Virtual surround is a joke in my opinion and exists only as marketing tool.

Some great info there. Thanks very much. I was wanting to bump the output a little higher.

"Why use fiber? It separates the PC and DAC electrically and eliminates any grounding issues or noises."
I figured as much and considering I have a brand new ac1150 sound module, it's almost overkill. But, I do like the headphone jack with volume control access on my desktop. The D1 gets power only from a usb2 port and audio is out to the tos. So I have the option of D1 AE speakers(usb), the hdmi pc monitor or the digital direct.

I am going to assume after thinking about it that the DTS 5.1 only works when an hdmi cable is correctly connected to a 5.1 enabled receiver or either a tos is. Not sure as I don't plan on a home theater any time soon. 2.1 is fine for me. I could have bought an orb audio 2.1 complete ( I have yet to buy the $350 AE sub), but it uses a small 20 watt amp that resembles the D1, has no headphone port, and their sattelites are speaker wire only I f I recall correctly. But for around $550 you get the two sats, the sub, and the little amp. The one thing that bugs me is they do not list specs on the orb site either. In any case, ac1150 supports true dts sourround; not virtual, which I don't like either. AE's 22w amp is actually pretty sweet lookin imo. Just a touch too small. I'm leaving mine at 16/48k and I'll probabaly get the sub hopefully by xmas.