Astro A40 Headset with Asus Xonar Xense; Will I still need the MixAmp?

[JonSimonzi]

My friends is giving me a spare A40 headset he has, but it's just the headset and connecting cables, and will not come with the MixAmp. Now, before I buy a MixAmp, I want to see if it's something I'll even need, since my sound card has a built in headphone amplifier.

Asus Xonar Xense is the sound card I have. It says it has

High Fidelity Headphone Amplifier:

Texas Instruments 6120A2*1 (120dB SNR, -117dB THD+N @ Vcc+-12V, RL=600Ω, f=1kHz)

Which, if I can understand correctly, says it should power headphones up to 600 ohms. This page list the A40 headset at having a normal impedance of only 50 ohms.

Here's a quick spec sheet image I found over on H:



along with the quote

We asked Aron Drayer, marketing director at Astro Gaming, what is the highest impedance the Astro MixAmp can provide for using third party headsets and headphones, and he told us:

We have no upper impedance issues. Our minimum impedance is 16ohms. MixAmp specs all at 1K: 93 mW into 16 ohms, 56mW into 32 ohms, 40mW into 50 ohms with <.1% THD+N.

Now, my question is, will I need the MixAmp, or will my sound cards headphone amplifier work fine? Which is better, the MixAmp, or my sound cards one? Thanks.

 

[Dakyris]

Now, my question is, will I need the MixAmp, or will my sound cards headphone amplifier work fine? Which is better, the MixAmp, or my sound cards one? Thanks.

Soundcard amplifier will be fine. I have the STX which seems to be very similar to the Xense and a pair of Sennheiser PC360 (also 50ohm) and it's perfect. 50ohm is actually rather easy to drive, it would even work with quite a few onboard solutions too (now the sound quality wouldn't be as good, obviously, but it would work).

The Mixamp is mostly used to virtualize surround sound with headphones (and it also acts as an amp, obviously). Your soundcard supports DolbyHeadphone which does the same job and it has an headphone amplifier too.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about the mixamp if you have a good soundcard. It's almost necessary if you plan on using the headphone on an xbox or a ps3, because you would use the mixamp to simulate the surround.

 

[JonSimonzi]

Thanks for the response. The card actually came with the PC350's, but the microphone stopped working. I'm going to use the A40 while I RMA the PC350's, and then see which I like better from there.

The headset would only be used with my computer, I don't game on consoles so I don't have to worry about using with a PS3 or Xbox 360.