Sound card for Sennheiser PC 360

care

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I am looking for a sound card that would fit best with Sennheiser 360. I will be mostly using them for gaming but also for listening music. I have already been looking for some and i found these:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
HT | OMEGA STRIKER 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card
ASUS Xonar DS 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Audio Card

My budget is around 70€.

I appreciate your help.

Best regards, care
 

fergie

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I use the 360s with a Sound Blaster X-fi Titanium Fatality sound card and think they sound fantastic. I have heard good things about the Asus too. Don't know much about the other make. For gaming I would think either would be a good choice with that headset.
 
Well, for around $70 or so, the best options are:

HT Omega Striker
ASUS Xonar D1/DX

Moving up:
Auzentech Meridian 2G

Most of the cards I would recommend more expensive then this are more or less designed around a headphone amp, so unless you want/need a headphone amp, I wouldn't recommend much above the Meridian 2G.
 

care

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Fatality is 79€ new on amazon so i will maybe buy that :)
Auzentech meridian is 82€. Which one is better?
 
In my mind, the Meridian 2G is better then the Titanium (115dB SnR versus 109dB SnR). [Make sure its the 2G, and not the old Meridian...] Its subjective though, and depends a lot on how you like your audio.
 

kong911

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@care

how often do you listening to your headphones?...If you're listening to it the majority of the time...I would recommend the Xonar or any that has dedicated headphone amp. Plus, how critical are you when you're listening to music? there's a tradeoff between gaming and music time. However I think the Xonar is good overall.

I've upgraded my Xtreme Fatality to Xonar Essence STX and never look back.
 

care

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I mostly use them for gaming. Lets say 3/4 of time i spent on computer is gaming and 1/4 is music listening and work. Unfortunately I don't have that much money to buy asus stx:) And can you please explain me which sound cards have intergrated amp and why is it actually so important, cause i'm kinda noob about sound stuff.
 
The amp question is unanswerable without getting into a discussion about impedance and the like, so I'll have someone else do it for me :D

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html
and
http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/gain-and-headphone-ampsdacs.html

The amp basically provides the voltage necessary to drive high impedence headphones. Because of those high voltages, you pull less current, thus leading the less distortion in the audio signal. Oh, and you get a LOUDER output.

For instance, the PC 360's are rated at 50 Ohms, but the PC 350 is rated at 3 times that, or 150 Ohms. Thus, the 350's benifit more from using an amp then the 360's would, as they require a higher voltage to reach a decent output level.

I would argue that an amp really isn't needed for the 360's, unless you want them REALLY LOUD, though I do admit that this topic is a "little" out of my comfort zone. You could certainly hedge your bets and get a card with an amp, then decide if you want to use it or not.
 
^^ At that point, you may as well get the Xonar Xense + PC 350 package, which costs ~$300, which is quite a steal. Thats what I'm running right now.

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-Xonar-Xense-Acoustics-Sennheiser/dp/B0040YJNSW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312833594&sr=8-1

Heres a review: (I defer to Robscix, the Guru3d audio guru)
http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-xonar-xense-71-soundcard-review/

The cards with a built in amp, in rough order of quality:

ASUS Xonar DG
Auzentech Forte
ASUS Xonar Xense
HT Omega Claro XT
Creative Titanium HD
ASUS Essence ST/STX
 

care

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So what do you think about the headset and sound card. And how much is the xonar xense worth without 350's? And is it worth giving 60€ more for 360 headset?
 
The Xense benifits from the 350's, as out of the box, thats how its tuned. That being said, I currently don't have any other headsets to do a comparison test with, but out of the box with PC 350's, my initial thoughts were how perfectly tuned the soundcard seemed to be out of hte box.

Even without, its still a VERY capable soundcard. My thought though, is that cards like the Xense, while very good [or rather, excellent] on the other analog outputs, go to waste if you don't use the amp, as its the cards major feature.

The 360's probably won't benifit much when used with an amp, but I'd defer to anyone who actually tried the setup personally.

Right now, the two cards I'd recommend:
Without amp: Auzentech Meridian 2G
With amp: ASUS Xonar Xense [you can buy without getting the PC 350's if you want]