SPDIF varies all over the place particularly with optical outs. Check it out once. Using the same DAC with different TOSLINK sources you may be surprised at what you hear. (or don't!)
The thing is, isn't that less likely to do with the quality of SPDIF and more other stuff, like processing? Granted that's mostly being pedantic, since if you can't control it, then that's the output you get, but that's still different from there being some inherent issue with the connector (plus it would matter on other outputs, although maybe not always). And some implement it poorly (i.e. lock it down to only passing certain bitrates). I guess my point is, there's nothing technically inherent to it that causes it, or prevents it from being able to be done correctly consistently.
But I used to hear the same thing all the time with regards to USB outputs, and a lot of people would say that SPDIF sounds better even though they could basically never provide any real evidence supporting it so it just came off as bias. That's not to say there aren't plenty of ways USB could be handled in a poor way (and early on, generally USB was limited to 16/44.1 for instance, plus clock and timing issues). One of the Fiio USB DAC/amps even had a weird issue where it would drop audio if there was like silence for long enough, and on some rare cases it would get wonky. A song that showed it was the Castle Theme from Super Mario World, that initial section where it has the quick tempo it would drop out on the initial part of it. They knew about it and fixed it in later ones and it had something to do with the implementation of the USB receiver chip I believe. That was the only thing that I could find that consistently showed it too (and other music that I thought would, as it would have something kinda similar didn't do it).
Assuming you can afford the space, you could always use an old HT / stereo receiver with digital inputs to drive the cans.
Overkill, but cheap and good quality.
I'd say that you should compare the digital and analog and see, you might be better off doing analog out to a receiver. Also good luck on figuring out the electrical specs of the headphone outputs. For a long time people had a myth that headphone jacks on receivers were via some dirt cheap IC, when in fact it was much more likely to be done via resistors. One isn't necessarily better than the other (and implementation matters).
I actually do have an old Yamaha stereo receiver that I could use. Being clueless on this, if the X-Fi is setup for virtual surround sound will that still provide that positional sound thru the Yamaha to my headset?
If you're doing it analog then yeah it should. If digital, I think you should still be fine, as I believe that Creative would let processing still happen on stereo digital out (but on the initial X-Fi cards, I think if you did digital surround it would only pass things through and not process). You should be able to check though (just turn stuff on and off and adjust the settings, if it makes a difference then its on, if not then you know it isn't). Might also be able to check by doing DD/DTS encoding (I think Creative added that to all X-Fis through a software/driver update, but maybe it was only certain models, or maybe it was that one popular 3rd party driver that people would use).
Just got SoundBlaster Z. Very good headphones amplifier. If you have nice headphones with 3.5mm jack, you're not going to get their full potential without an add-on board
You can't really say that in absolution though. An add-in card could actually be worse, if for instance it has a high output impedance and you pair it with some very low impedance headphones. Or if it doesn't have the output necessary to drive the headphones well. But then some people actually like how impedance mismatching can affect sound. And there's the rub, there's simple electrical explanations for why there could be differences, and there's plenty of situations where objectively (as in measurably) worse sound could be preferred because distortion can actually be enjoyable (or you might luck out and it'll get rid of bad frequency spikes that it would have on better equipment). But that's also why for quality the idea is that you do things right and measure well in every area, and so that other companies would target objectively good sound to tune their stuff. Having a good quality baseline helps set levels for the rest of the way. So stuff like neutrality and reference levels help. And the benefit is that if you're very much about a euphoric experience, you can then tune away and you'll be better there as well.
I use a USB DAC due to interference issues with some of my onboard sound over the years with about half of my laptops/motherboards that have it.
Unfortunately, the USB DAC doesn't help either as the interference travels through the power feeding the USB. The solution was to get a USB isolator.
FWIW, Tomshardware did a blindtest between several high end DACs, including a $2000 desktop DAC and a cheap $2 realtek onboard one and failed to hear any difference. I would expect YMMV quite a bit depending on the circuit quality of your motherboard though.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html
I like them putting in the effort, but there's some issues. I wasn't able to see if they had all of them output to the same amp (so were comparing just the DAC aspects or if it was the total package), or if it was straight out of whatever jacks they had. Would be nice if they locked in a test setup and then would have new people do it and get more data too.
But then it doesn't really matter too much, as usual, it shows that the weak links in the audio chains continues to be...us! I know a lot of factors comes into play in my enjoyment of audio. I can listen to the exact same stuff on the same equipment on different days and one day be really into it, and another day feel like its grating.
I have one of these. They haven't upgraded it in years so it's still one of the best cards out.
I think there actually is a new version of that card now. Not sure if it might not have been released/distributed in the US. Hmm, looking it up, I guess not. I knew they had the newer gaming focused styled surround cards, but could swear they showed off a new version of the STX. Maybe that's all it was and they didn't get enough feedback (or the market is too small) to actually produce it. But they did make that expensive stand alone Essence DAC/amp.
Ya, part of me feels bad for sound card manufacturers. Unless the slot they go into becomes outdated, there's like no reason to swap a quality working card out.
Sure there are, as its more about features than outright quality (although they have also improved the latter).
Plus if that were anywhere close to the case with the audio, we wouldn't be seeing what we do, where it used to be $1000 for a headphone was only for limited edition ones that were especially special. Now companies are selling enough of those headphones to warrant having multiple models, and some are pushing to $5000. And if you consider Sennheiser and their Orpheus, well let's just say you shouldn't feel too bad. Same with you shouldn't feel too bad about how Creative isn't doing as well since they're a typical case of "dominated a market by using questionable tactics to remove their competition and then didn't adapt as things changed". Frankly the reason they survived the mid-late 2000s is because they had enough patents to work deals with companies (including Apple). I think they make some good products now, but can't fault anyone for harboring ill will about how they operated before.
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