Advise on Sound Card/Headphone pairing; gaming.

You got your shit backwards. Buy axonar DXG(it has a headphone amp) and spend the money on a nice pair of headphones - skip the astro stuff unless it's for a console.

http://www.rerolled.org/showthread.p...hones-Headsets

Zodiac is right. Grab that sound card then start digging into some headphone forums to see what you might like. Something like this would be pretty darn perfect for just getting into good headphones. Very natural sound and don't need a lot of power.

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-...ser+headphones

Okay, well... you've got a problem with option #2. See that little box that's attached? That acts as a DAC. Which means it plugs into USB, and you plug your headphones directly into the little box itself. Which means it would circumnavigate the sound card completely. So if you go with option #2, leave out the sound card since it acts as one. But if you just want ease-of-use, that may be your best option.

If you aren't concerned with multichannel, honestly I'd consider going with an audiophile-style DAC/AMP combo. I've never heard Astro's, but I'm guessing audiophile grade stuff would blow it out of the water. Fiio makes some decent stuff... an E07k or E17 would do the trick, and would replace the soundcards in your lineup. The pro's being that you can unplug the USB and take it to a laptop, plug it in, and get the same quality. The downside being that you can't plug your mic into it. And your mic would have to be separate. But they're cheap for decent ones, and can sit atop your monitor happily.

As for headphones... I use AIAIAI TMA-1's for gaming. ProAudioStar usually has B-Stock for around a hundred bucks. Sennheiser HD-25's would also be a good choice. Both are tailored for DJ'ing, and can take quite the pounding.


P.S. And if I had to choose from the components you listed, I'd get the A40 headset-only with the cheaper Asus DX/DG soundcard. They are solid cards for the price. And unless your listening to high-resolution vinyl rips in your freetime, you aren't going to really be able to tell the difference for everyday gaming.

That's the sound card that I linked, it will work great for you. tbh you will prolly turn off dobly headphone very quickly, the sound on modern games doesn't need the emulation. The 360s are great, but if you wanted you could buy any nice headphones and use amodmic. Most keyboards have volume/mute controls so it's not a huge deal (mine doesn't so I use a key comboshortcut).

http://www.head-fi.org/t/637699/50mm...-sound-amazing

Just ordered a pair for ~40$. Hope they're as good as they say.

I honestly wouldn't spend more than $40 bucks to listen to mp3s. If you are an audiophile and have .flacs or regular cds to enjoy maybe get some studio headphones.

Plaid_sl said:

This could be because I haven't had the opportunity to try high-end cards, like a phoebus or stx, but the xonar dgs is $40 (which is what I bought), and listening to lossless audio is a brand new experience. Point is, Not sure what more there is to gain by spending $200 other than features. Maybe someone can explain the audio differences between low end asus cards and $200 cards?

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Mostly any type of amp and quality DACS will drive up the price of a sound card. This can be a hotly debated topic, so I won't be too authoritative on what i'm saying. But if you can tell a difference, pay for it. If not, then skip the highend.