Have Shure SE530 & Grado SR80 need advice on upgrade on OTH for Asus xonar essence stx

[Zubkabera]

My upgrade bug is itching me badly so need advice on what will be the logical step to give me more insight into Music nirvana, I use Shure SE530 with iphone and on desktop using Grado SR80, I will be replacing my desktop sound card from X-fi xtrememusic to Asus Xonar Essence based on excellent review in Stereophile,

I need to know if these two headphone will do justice to that Asus Xonar or I should upgrade to something in the range 250-350 quids which will give me more solid bass and sweet treble on top of these two.

 

[idc]

Two headphones that come to mind for more bass depth than the SR80s are the Denon AH D1001 and the Dr Dre Beats. Both are well under budget. Both do pounding bass but retain midrange and treble detail, the Denon's more so than the Beats to my ears. You can audition the Denons at John Lewis and the Beats at an Apple Store. Just below budget are the Denon AH D2000 and above are the AH D3000s. The closed backed design should help firn up the sound for you.

Arguably, does a new sound card do justice to the headphones? You are in budget for a dedicated headphone amp and DAC from the miniture and portable ranges from Firestone Audio, RSA, Headroom and iBasso.

 

[Zubkabera]

Hi idc,

Thanks for your excellent input, I never thought about a portable headphone, I admit I just got carried away with the review Asus Xonar on Stereophile, I have a DacMagic too connected to my Rega Brio but unfortunately neither of two have headphone socket, so for late night listening I use my PC which is equiped with x-fi card and grado.

Now I have two questions first does these headphone amps like ibasso, fubar iv, pico will give me better sound then a soundcard like Asus Xonar essences or M-audio, secondly can I keep Grado and invest in headphone amp or will I need to upgrade that also?

 

[SpiceWeasel]

I have the Grado SR80i's and recently upgraded my pc setup with the Fubar4, this was very recently on offer for 125 euro's. I have exactly the same soundcard in my pc and thought my Grados sounded fairly good via the headphone socket of my Creative pc speakers. The little Fubar though has made a big difference to the sound quality and I think would easily handle more expensive phones. Alot more detailed than before and I have heard sounds that my soundcard used to ignore. For the money I paid it is an absolute bargain, even at the full price though I think it would be worth every penny euro.

How does it compare to the Asus Xonar well I have no idea, but I would be extremely suprised if it sounded as good as the Fubar (or other similar dac/headamps). The reason I say that is due to a soundcard being designed for surround sound as well as stereo,it doesn't have a dedicated headphone amplifier and the fact it lives in a very noisy enviroment. It is possible to pick up lots of RFI interference from noisy pc fans as well as the rest of the components inside a pc case. A dedicated dac/headamp lives in it's own shielded box well away from the pc's noisy bits.

I have the Fubar connected via USB and the soundcard works as normal for gaming with the Fubar switched off. With the Fubar switched on the audio only comes out of the Fubar, turn it off and the sound card then works as normal. Currently listening to the new Massive Attack album via Spotify premium and it sounds fantastic

 

[Zubkabera]

Hi SpiceWease,
My dilemma is I am not sure whether I should buy a portable headphone or a better PC card, I know with portal amp I have advantage of portability using it with my iphone or laptop as well, but not sure if portable amp in the range of 200-300 quids will sound as good as asus xonar essence.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

The Fubar4 is mains powered so is not portable, it is small though so will fit just about anywhere. You can buy portable headphone amplifiers for use with mobile phones/ipods for around £20 upwards, they won't be as good as a proper amp but for the price you wouldn't expect it to be.

I havn't heard the Asus Sonar sound card so it's hard to say if it will be better than a proper dac/headphone amp. What I do know is the Fubar was a massive improvement over my X-Fi soundcard, in a completely different league.

Your best bet is to try and demo both types of products which might be tricky, most hifi stores should have a selection of headphone amps though so that should be easier to compare to your current soundcard. The Sonar might have a very good dac though so if you went that route you could add a seperate headphone amplifier at a later stage. The Fubar is a combined DAC and headphone amp in one small box.

I still think that a similar priced DAC or a combined DAC/amp (a bit more expensive) would beat the Sonar as they are designed to do one job only, play stereo music. Alot of the cost of a soundcard will be taken up with all those extra components needed for games/surround sound.

With your budget you have a few options to choose from, hopefully some of the more experienced headfiers will be able to help further.