headphone amp

[mrgq912]

Does the breakout box on Creative X-fi contain a headphone amp.

It has a headphone jack, but is it powered by an amp. And would it power my 300omh Sennheiser 580.

I am considering buying a DIY Cmoy amp from ebay. But if the creative x-fi can power my headphones than i might as well buy a new soundcard.

Advice?

Thanks

 

[darkswordsman17]

I believe that it does have an amp (you're talking about the box with the Elite Pro I assume and not the 5.25 bay), however I don't know how good it really is. I've seen a couple of people who liked it (one I know had the Sennheiser HD-650s), but most people wouldn't bother. You could save some money and just grab the XtremeMusic and spend the rest on the amp. If gaming is the only thing you're really wanting it for then you could even go with the XtremeGamer and save more.

If you'll listen to music and play games equally or maybe even do more music than games, then I would even recommend getting a USB DAC/amp combo. This way you could bypass the X-Fi entirely for music, but have it connected to the DAC/amp for games as well. If you get something like the HippoHiFi Bloat or the Headroom Total Bithead you'll have a nice solution that would, in my opinion, be better than getting an X-Fi with the breakout box.

Of course if you need the extra inputs or recording capabilities then you'd be better off with the X-Fi and breakout box.

 

[Mrvile]

I have the HD580 and sometimes run it through my Audigy2 ZS soundcard. It sounds alright, but sounds much better through my Darkvoice 336i tube amp. All audio components have amps, but the thing is, some are better than others. The amps in iPods, for example, are pretty bad and are only designed to drive sensitive headphones.

About the CMOY...it will sound better than the iPod amp, but I doubt it will be any better than the X-Fi amp. I don't know what your budget is, but I would personally get a cheap soundcard with optical out, the most popular is the $22 Chaintech AV710, and then get a DAC/amp combo like the Zhaolu D2.0. Or, you could keep what you have and just get a USB DAC/amp combo like darkswordsman17 stated, the Bithead is a pretty popular option.