I'm looking at getting a pair of decent headphones and am pretty settled on the akg q701's will an Asus phoebus drive them sufficiently? And having very little experience in the audio world where would you suggest looking for them for the cheapest price? I don't mind second hand but it would have to be from a reputable source.
I'm the happy owner of AKG's K701. They are wonderful cans but are hard to drive. People complaining about the lack of bass are just using the wrong amp. Do not try to use them with smartphone, beat advertised thing, internal sound chipset. I'm drving them with a Diy headamp connected to an maudio 2496 sound card. I bought them from Thomann : www.thomann.de/gb/akg_q701_white.htm?sid=552ce2cdd6c35c23bbc1e4847a0fc075
The Phoebus alone will drive them OK for games (analytic detail sound whoring and all that), but not much more - presuming the amp in the Phoebus is akin to the one in other high end sound cards (Auzentech Forte, Titanium HD etc). If you want to get the best out of those cans you want a pretty expensive amp. They are pretty expensive headphones so you are pretty much required to invest in a hefty amp, that's just the way it works unfortunately so you would want to factor the amp cost into your budget. You can use them without an amp straight from the Phoebus pretty well though, it can certainly last you for games until you buy an amp to get the most out of music and such.
Based on my own experience with the K701, even an hifi amp wasn't able to drive them properly. They aren't high impedence cans but they really do need some juice. A dedicated headphone amp is more than recommended, my mAudio alone can't do them any justice (the sound is nice, but not what it could be with a proper amp). Maybe this link can help you : http://www.head-fi.org/t/548609/amp-for-the-akg-k701 My best advise would be to either read "return on experience" or try the headphone on different setup. Figures, high price tag and curves doesn't mean that it will sound good. I've listened to expensive amp and speaker that made an awful couple
Would a regular soundcard like an Asus Xonar drive headphones like this? I have the K702s and they've never sounded right on my onboard audio (go figure!). I'm just building up an HTPC at the moment expressly for music; it was going to contain my old Xonar D2. Would that do it, or is it still not enough?
From what it sounds like, no. After a little google the K70x series series appear to be notorious for being hard to drive, so something like a FiiO e10 would work well.
They will sound "ok", but not what they are reallt capable of. They really need some juice and good dynamics to really shine. They are fairly low impedance cans (64Ohms), so they need a very low impedance amp to drive them correctly (the rules is Amp output impedance inferior to headphone impedance / 8).
for HTPC a HiFi USB Amp with Head phone Amp would be best. I do not recommend Fiio products first one completely faulty 2 tried to kill my amp 3rd faulty. All different models, china quality shines through.
The reviews I've been reading hint at the possibility of USB headphone amps suffering for a lot of EM interference, which would be a problem (my house is saturated with wifi, cordless phones, range extenders, remote controls and mains power cables). Interference was mentioned in the FiiO reviews, but I can't find a USB amp that mentions specifically shielding against it. Incidentally, where do you guys go for your PC-audiophile information? The audiophile magazines I've glanced over never touch on PC hardware, focusing exclusively on dedicated hifi gear.
Give your local independent specialist hifi dealer a call and ask them to demonstrate some headphone amps to you. Theyre not massively popular do you'll not have lots of choice, but that's the beauty as the dealer will have auditioned a few and decided on the best choice for their clients.
Only the cheap ones that either do not have a metal housing or don't ground it. http://www.avforums.com/ http://www.richersounds.com/product/dacs/cambridge-audio/dacmagic-plus/camb-dacmagic-plus-b http://www.richersounds.com/product/amplifiers-receivers/cambridge-audio/azur-351a/camb-351a-blk there are a few basic choices.
As MSHunter said, only the cheap ones have these issues. The case is often not well shielded, the ground track is badly designed and the signal filtering is of poor quality. If well designed, an amplifier only needs a few components, the critical stage is the power circuitry.
Else, the sennheiser hd598 are quite nice cans and are easier to drive. They are worth a listening test
