Headphone amps: is my Xonar U7 not doing justice to music?

[destrekor]

I'll say up front that after switching from my Sennheiser HD280 Pro to the HD598, my jaw nearly hit the floor, and I can't find any flaw at this point in time. Maybe as I adjust to these, but right now, it's still just a shock how much more of my music shines through. The open-back nature helps, of course, but also they are just so much more full. I'll have to try and do an A-B comparison later and see try to directly compare how music sounds between the two sets of cans, but it won't be a perfect A-B as I have to pause, unplug, then plug in the other set (I don't have a splitter, plus both have different resistance anyway).


However, I am curious to know if there is anything more magical to be had that I might be missing. I understand all amps are not the same, they will have their own tendency to "color" the music to some degree.

Is the built-in amp of the Xonar U7 greatly inferior to something like the Fiio E12?

FWIW, I on the 280 Pros (64ohm) I was using the High Gain (64ohm+) setting in the Xonar control panel. For the 598s (50ohm), I feel like the Medium Gain is better (32-64ohm) as it gives me more volume range to work with. Playing with the volume it doesn't seem like it changes the sound at comparable volume levels, it just makes around 20/100 my upper comfortable volume level instead of closer to 40 or 50.