ASUS Xonar DX Heaphone amp?

specter51095

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So im looking for a nice sound card for 100$ish and under it needs to be PCI-e as my only PCI slot is blocked by my GPU.
As long as it is arround or under 100$ money isnt an issue and i want the best so I was looking at getting the ASUS Xonar DX however i would like to know if it has a headphone amp.
I am not trying to drive SH HD800s here but i would like to drive 60-80ohm headphones with this card (I might eventualy do100-150ohm but i HIGHLY doubt it)
It is NOT listed on any site that i found that there is a headphone amp but then when i was on asus's website doing some final digging on the card i found this

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/Audio_Card/Xonar_DX/e3859b_Xonar_DX.pdf

That is the manual for the card itself.
If you go down to page 19 where it shows how to connect headphones the text box below it would suggest that there infact is a headphone amp on this card

Thats where i get all confuzed
So does it or does it not have a headphone amp on the card?
Also does it amplify the front audio on your case too?

I was hopeing that someone who owns the card could awnser that question for me.

Thanks for your help. :D
 
Interesting; I wouldn't count on it to drive a high impedance headphone, but I'm not shocked they bossted the stereo out a little bit...

If you want something with a bit more oomph, I'd recommend the Xonar DG, which does have an amp [capable of driving 150Ohm headphones].
 

swoz

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Reading through this pdf, I would say it does NOT have a 'headphone amp' greater than you would find in a normal sound card.
It does have a connection for front panel audio - see page 5 connection number 6.

This should be enough to drive your 60-80 Ohm headphones, but probably not high impedance phones (250+ Ohm).

The Xonar with a nice dedicated headphone amp is much more expensive than this one though.
 
I suspect the DX wouldn't be able to drive a 64Ohm or better headset very well; If you plan to go any higher then that, I'd recommend either the ASUS Xonar DG, or another card with a built in amp [ASUS Xonar Xense, or even the Essence ST/STX come to mind]
 

specter51095

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ok so if i did need to get an amp then how would i pick one out and what would i look for because honestly i have no idea where i would start.

razer does list this card on thier list of reccomended cards (http://www.razerzone.com/tiamat/en/soundcards) so from that i think it should at least work pretty good if not then i can buy an amp.