Well I originally ran my SR80i's via my pc's headphone output (on the remote for the creative pc speakers) with a X-Fi extreme music soundcard. The headphones sounded reasonably good but I then tried them pluged into my dads Marantz stereo and that was a big improvement in sound quality over my pc setup.
Most headphone outputs on hifi equipment is more of an after thought, so most are in fact not very good. Better than my pc setup though, well at least via the Marantz. I then bought a Fubar4 at the begining of the year when Firestone had them on special offer. It has a much better DAC than my soundcard so I thought should offer some improvement in sound quality and of course it has a proper headphone output designed for the job.
Does the Fubar make a massive difference? Well I was shocked at the difference in sound quality via the Fubar, even my dads Marantz sounded like a budget amplifier in comparison. Its like going from a cheap hifi to a proper stereo system, the music sounds clearer with much more detail than before, instruments stand out more easily and well it sounds fantastic. The Fubar did seem to take 40-50 hours or so to run in, I don't know if that was just how long my ears took to get used to the sound or if the Fubar improved in that time. But it sounded better after 40hrs or so.
I still use my soundcard for gaming and watching movies via my 5.1 headphones, and this works as normal when the Fubar is switched off. Flick the power switch on the Fubar and the pc speakers/headphones mute and you only get audio through the Fubar. Turn the Fubar off and the pc sound comes back to life.
So you can use it either as a replacement for the soundcard if you just want to use your Grados (or as a DAC into a hifi) , or you can use both like I do.
I don't think I would of got the same level of improvement even if I had bought a £500 pair of headphones with my old pc setup compared to the SR80i's and the Fubar.
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