Crash55 wrote:
I figured hardcore audiophiles would prefer a proper speaker setup. I prefer my Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 over headphones.
Hardcore audiophiles arent using Klipsch promedia speakers either. Not even close to audiophile grade. While their high end beats out a good bit of their market segment their market segment is not an audiophile audience. They are lacking hugely in the midrange and the subs have no tonality, just move air at a high volume. They also lacked separation and depth. Tried the klipsch set up just for giggles and thats all I did was giggle....all the way back to best buy to return them. To get a decent sounding pair of speakers and a sub at the budget level you are looking at $1000 minimum on just speakers( this is only two studio monitors and a sub, no wires or shielded cables, NADA) , only goes up from there. This isn't including a decent DAC to feed them that again budget friendly is baseline of $200 and upwards of $10K.
Headphones are great so long as you procure a decent set of cans. Most of what you see is junk and I wouldn't bother either. Probably the cheapest headphones that sound OK will run you $150 like the audio technica ath-m50s. Again that's minimum. I use mid level cans and they have a very nice sound quality and are extremely comfortable.
My Sennheiser HD 700s can be had for just over $400 and are a good quality product but there are even nicer sets that will eat up over $1000 like the Sennheiser HD 800s that go for about $1600. Both are reference headphones meaning they reproduce the sound as it was recorded without boosting highs mids or lows.
Couple a pair of these with a decent DAC and headphone amp and you will rescind the statement of preferring best buy PC speakers over headphones.
I don't use the 5.25 drive bay headphone amp either. Still get fed from a less than stellar source. Crap in=crap out. I connected it on first configuration (didnt mount it) plugged in a set of reference headphones and played a nice full range track and immediately disconnected it and put it back in the box.
There are a few ways to get better sound, none of them involve using on board analog outputs or headphone amp.
Either a decent sound card or use USB or Toslink out to an external DAC. Most of the decent ones will do 24 bit 192kbps audio, they normally include a headphone amp as well or you can buy different components.
I think people who use dedicate sound cards should keep SupremeFX Hi-Fi in box and onboard sound disabled in BIOS.
Even if they use headphones better to use sound card. I never use headphones.
That's improvement for people who use always onboard sound and want to use headphones and microphone with SupremeFX, she offer OK sound.
But again for some serious work you need at least 100-150$ sound card and some normal microphone and headphones.
I think that X99 boards where people anyway need graphic card dedicate and can't use Internal and onboard sound should buy and better sound card.
With small little boards people with smaller budget could use Internal GPU and onboard sound. It's nice because ASUS install SupremeFX and on cheaper
motherboards as Z170 Gaming series. Using onboard sound with 500$ worth CPU and 700$ worth GPU is bad.
Even if they use headphones better to use sound card. I never use headphones.
That's improvement for people who use always onboard sound and want to use headphones and microphone with SupremeFX, she offer OK sound.
But again for some serious work you need at least 100-150$ sound card and some normal microphone and headphones.
I think that X99 boards where people anyway need graphic card dedicate and can't use Internal and onboard sound should buy and better sound card.
With small little boards people with smaller budget could use Internal GPU and onboard sound. It's nice because ASUS install SupremeFX and on cheaper
motherboards as Z170 Gaming series. Using onboard sound with 500$ worth CPU and 700$ worth GPU is bad.
