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[Erendil]

Originally Posted by basti

Amps? Really?

My god, why? The Signal from ya PC is what you get, a AMP isnt magically improving it. Its just changing some Frequencys around a bit, but i can do that with software, better, and still have more audio quality as my wires are shorter = less potential outside crap coming in.

Okay..... Amps 101... First off, everybody uses an amp. Even you. Your amp just happens to be (presumably) built onto the circuitry of whatever sound card you have.

But due to the limitations of size of the card itself, space between card slots, the limited and noisy power produced by the 12V and/or 5V rails of your switching power supply which can be further bottlenecked by the card slot it is plugged into, and cost of individual components (like the capacitors and opamps on your card), the signal reaching your headphones is weak, dirty and somewhat muddled (comparatively speaking).

However, external Amps use their own dedicated power source and have no power, space or cost limitations beyond what the designer wishes. This means that an external amp can be built to greatly increase the cleanliness, stability, and amount of electrical power that is available to the voice coils in your headphones well beyond the capabilities of the tiny opamps and simple circuits found on integrated audio sources like a sound card.

This increase in power leads to greater control, larger dynamic response, and faster transient movement of said coils to provide the listener ( if the amp is well-matched to the rest of the system) with a deeper and more controlled bass, faster attacks (like the snap! of a snare drum), longer and more natural decays (like that from cymbols or a triangle), highs that are less piercing or "peaky" and yet more detailed, a larger soundstage, more precise imaging and location of sound sources, etc.

So no, "the signal from ya PC" is not what you get, since whether it's built onto the sound card or housed in an external casing, it is changed by whatever amp circuitry you happen to be using.

Your's is a tiny circuit using small capacitors and probably cheap opamps, fed by a weak card slot and/or molex connector from a noisy power supply.

Mine is an analog signal fed unchanged via line-out directly to my external amp with its own beefy, clean linear power supply, large capacitors, and multiple opamps per channel in a layout specifically designed for the demands of a pair of headphones.

Which do you think will sound better?