Sound Card? Amp and Dac? Nothing?

PawButtox

New member
I have recently purchased a pair of Philips X2 Fidelio headphones and am looking to use the headphone port on the front of my computer running on an Asus Maximus VII Hero motherboard. Is the onboard sound of my board good enough to get the best quality out of these headphones or would an internal soundcard or external amp and dac be required?

Any suggestions would be great.
Looking to use these for gaming and music purposes.
 
Impedance is only 30 Ohms so I'd say they aren't going to cause issues with mobo sound, they may sound a little better at high volume with a headphone amp.
 
I found my Fidelio X1 sounding very dull using onboard sound. Using the Fiio it got much better.
I'd still first try the onboard since the X1 and X2 and completely similar, same with our onboard solutions. You can still get a Fiio down the line.
 
Don't use the front panel headhone connectors, use those that are on the board.
Most of the times the signal gets distorted and/or isn't actually amped up
 
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Don't use the front panel headhone connectors, use those that are on the board.
Most of the times the signal gets distorted and/or isn't actually amped up

If I do that then I won't be able to easily switch between headphones and speakers because there is only one output? Is there a way around this?

Posts merged - Please use the multi-quote function

With headphones like that you really want a DAC.

Got any suggestions in mind?
 
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Got any suggestions in mind?

Audio is a minefield mate if I'm honest. My personal preference is heavily biased toward valves, so I would only recommend valves.

Like anything in life you won't get far without a price in mind. Once you set that price do your research and a ton of reading.

But yeah, running a set of headphones like that from a sound card is pretty much blasphemy if I'm being honest. They're a really, really nice set of cans you have there :)
 
When you want to go for a good amp/dac you should take a look at schiit magni+modi or the o2 amp/dac that are priced reasonably
 
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