- Thread Starter
- #21
Make sure you add +12 gain on the AMP as well. (don't go higher for those headphones). (PS; turn down your volume a little bit first before doing this; you may blow your ears off). Then work out your desired volume from there. Amping headphones makes a huge difference. Especially quality ones that scale well with it. The difference for my Shure SRH 840's is night and day.
I personally run a 3M cord from the front of my desk to the back of my computer for the headphone port. I don't really like passing the front audio ports; as the cable has to run through the case to reach the front of it.. I use the rear output ports for everything.
For some software-based fun; enable Dolby Headphone + 7.1 Virtual for extra boom. Though If you want natural sounding music/sound leave them off. Though this can be fun to play with when you're in the mood for some extra 'oopmh'.
Also play around with the equalizer as you see fit.
Yeah I noticed the difference while comparing the soundcard and the onboard, I first tested the front panel connectors (connected to the onboard) and then the rear output, the rear output wasn't nearly as bad as the front port. Fortunately, I'm close enough to the case so I won't need an extension to plug the headphones in the rear outputs of the soundcard.
I checked the documentation on the xonar and the +12db gain is recommended for headphones with an impedance higher than 69 ohms, the seinnheiser are only 50ohms. But I guess it's worth a try (but putting the volume near minimum first and then gradually increasing it).
I noticed that I will have to swap between modes often though. To listen to music, I have to turn off dolby but it seemed decent enough in games (I tried it in BF3 and OMG that was awsome) but as I said, I couldn't quite get the same positionning info than with my old 5.1 kit, I guess I just have to get used to it or tweak the config a bit.
Thanks!
