which ext.soundcard or dac with headphone amp to buy for sennheiser hd558 and my laptop hp compac nc8230

[pixote]

i have a pc hp compaq nc8230

(audio specification:AC '97,Sound Blaster Pro

Audio Output Sound card .Compliant Standards AC '97,

Sound Blaster Pro .Audio Input Microphone)

i bought phones sennheiser hd 558,

mostly i listen to music in wma ( my original cds copied on hard disk) and mp3 formats(downloaded from torrent sites like piratebay,demonoid,...)

my soundcard isn t good enough for such great phones and on the previous

forum threads most of forum people told me that it isn t smart to buy just an quality headphone amp because my main music source (my sound card) is low quality,

so the first and most important thing is that i have a high quality soundcard,

i want to buy an external usb high quality soundcard or external dac(they told me that that is the same thing as an soundcard,even better) that has a headphone amp on itself

people told me if i buy a external soundcard and install it,that the first soundcard which is integrated on my computer wont have any effect on the sound anymore

so if that s true all what they say to me,than i can get a great sound just buying an

quality external soundcard,

one of the main problems i have had previous with my music on the laptop(besides the low quality) is when i listen

to music by maximum volume than i hear a murmur(or bad noise, dont know how to call that,my english is bad) on the sound, i want to be sure that that wont happen anymore when i buy that new external soundcard

idont want an internal soundcard, i just want an external soundcard(with an hq head.amp)

because its easier to connect it with usb to the pc and so i dont need to go to a shop that someone installats

-i want someone who is really an expert for such things that suggest me whats the best

external soundcard for my sennheiser hd 558 phones and my laptop hp compaq nc8230

my friend has a hifi Philips MC M772/12 ,,

i con nected my sennheiser hd 558 headphones to the hifi and listened to music on it,and was were satisfied with the sound

which ext.soundcard or dac (with headphone amps) should i buy that i can get such sound that i have when i conected those phones to philips MC M772/12 ,,

http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/m/mcm772_12/mcm772_12_pss_aen.pdf (fro(( jiijij(t((shhhhh

the specifications for that hifi are on that site

the money which i want to spend for that ext.soundcard is beetween 300 and 400 dollars, if its a little bit more expensive than that price it won t be a big problem,

please i want that people answer to me that are real experts for such things

thanks in advance

 

 

[dsnyder]

Howdy,

 

First, welcome to the Computer Audiophile forum. Hopefully you'll get more than a few responses to your post, but, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, it was a tiny bit hard to read/follow. As you spend more time on this forum, I'm sure that you'll get a better idea of how folks tend to format their posts to make them easy for others to read. Anyway, back to your question.

 

There are lots of great choices in the ~$350 price range. If you're somewhat technically inclined, the Creative E-MU 0204 and 0404 USB audio interfaces with native ASIO drivers can provide really nice sound for the money when used with a player (like foobar2000 or Mediamonkey) that supports ASIO. Both of these audio interfaces use the well respected AK5385A DAC chip and Class-A headphone amplifiers. A couple of other threads on this forum discuss these in more detail, especially the 0404 model.

 

The NuForce DACs are also very popular in this price range, including the uDAC-2 and Icon HD. I have not tried these myself, but they consistently receive great reviews from other folks on these pages, so they are worth considering.

 

Audio Advisor has a few headphone amps that could be combined with an HRT Music Streamer II to provide nice sound from your notebook.

 

Hope this helps!

 

-- David

 

 

[pixote]

i ve mostly interested for the Nuforce Icon HD (350$)

i ve read that on the nuforce icon hd site about its specification:

The Nuforce Icon HD incorporates a full-speed USB DAC (24bit/96kHz) and a headphone-amplifier circuit

 

i don t know much about such things , so i want to ask you what does 24bit/96kHz stand for, what does that bit/khz mean

i readed a review which wrote a guy who ordered that nuforce icon hd, he is very happy wit it, he connects his headphones

Denon AH-D5000(who are double more expensiver than mines)

and is very satisfied with it

so i thought if that dac can fill in and amplify his double more expensiver headphones,than it should be good for my headphones too

but i saw that that guy who wrote the text has a apple laptop which is much more expensiver than my, could this be a problem(because people told me that the laptop hasn t any influence to the sound quality of music , if you listened to music with usb dac)

 

[pixote]

that are the specification of my headphones senn hd 558

-Frequency response 15 – 28000 Hz

THD, total harmonic distortion < 0.2 % (1 kHz/100 dB SPL)

Sound pressure level (SPL) 112 dB

Impedance 50 ?

which caracteristics and specifications should a dac have so that i know that the sound would be good enough for my headphones

 

[pixote]

one guy told me that he bought a dac and when he started to listen to music on him with his headphones that than a murmur came on the sound which he didn t have before,

so he told me that the best way is that i go with my headphones and my laptop to the store and try the dac on it

but the problem is that there where i live (croatia)

doesn t exist any store with such product, so the only thing i can do is to buy online such a product without trying it,

so that s why i write so much i want to be sure that i don t order something wrong ( i ve already bought before 2 things wrong on the net, so i don t wann make the same question again)