Need a sound card suggestion (if i need one)

[BLindsay]

Right now i just have my headphones (HD650s) hooked to my onkyo 806 reciever and my computer is hooked up via optical out to my reciever.

Right now i am just using the optical out on my computer that is built into my motherboard so is the computer really doing much with the audio or is it really just passing it along to the reciever. Do you think it would be worth it to get a sound card (keeping in mind my sound card is not actually powering the headphones)

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by BLindsay

Right now i just have my headphones (HD650s) hooked to my onkyo 806 reciever and my computer is hooked up via optical out to my reciever.

Right now i am just using the optical out on my computer that is built into my motherboard so is the computer really doing much with the audio or is it really just passing it along to the reciever. Do you think it would be worth it to get a sound card (keeping in mind my sound card is not actually powering the headphones)

It's basically just passing the digital signal to your receiver's Dacs to be converted to analog. How it sounds will be influenced by the quality of the Dacs in your Onkyo. From what I read the 806 has average Dacs compared to it's predecessor the 805. Now how much difference you'd actually hear from a better Dac is very hard to say. Some people swear by outboard Dacs, some don't hear a difference, I guess it depends on your ears.

But when I went from my onboard sound to my E-Mu 0404, the difference was rather revealing way better than my Denon. Others who have the same Onkyo might know. If you ever want to go with a sound card the Asus Xonar STX is highly regarded, very good dacs and a pretty good headphone amp that could drive your HD650 well. Often times it's not a problem with volume per say but quality of the power going to your cans that makes a difference. I've tried my headphones on different sources and the sound does change quite a bit.

You might want to browse over here where they are more informed on headphones http://www.head-fi.org/

[SlaughterX]

Sound cards are obsolete. If you want to improve your audio quality then get a decent video card that will do HDMI audio out, then you can get uncompressed PCM audio.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by SlaughterX

Sound cards are obsolete. If you want to improve your audio quality then get a decent video card that will do HDMI audio out, then you can get uncompressed PCM audio.

Sounds cards are NOT obsolete. Your reference to HDMI is wrong as HDMI is a carrier and only relays information from the built-in DAC's on the card, which could be crap.

[SlaughterX]

What built-in DACs on the card? The video card sends the audio signal to the AVR via HDMI, the video card does no processing whatsoever.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by SlaughterX

What built-in DACs on the card? The video card sends the audio signal to the AVR via HDMI, the video card does no processing whatsoever.

L
While that is true a sound card with good dacs and dedicated headphone amp built for this purpose only more than often sound better with headphones than receiver where the headphone out is an after tought. IMO