Hi fellas!

I am looking for a decent soundcard that I can plug in various inputs through, preferably, a bay. Sort of like the Soundblaster ZS platinum, but I would like a better quality soundcard. I need this mainly for my turntables and headphones. I tend to use the headphones a lot since I live in apartments. This leads me to my next question, which is... What are a good pair of headphones? Thanks for the help!!

Consider buying an ordinary PCI soundcard and an extension cord for your headphones.
What inputs do you need? What about soundcard's purposes?

Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 is a very good card for playback purposes. Panasonic RP-HJE50 canalphones have amazing sound quality at very low cost.

A E-MU comes to mind.
The 1820 , for example, has a break-out box. They are supposed to sound excellent (never heared one myself).

If you are really into headphones, buy something like Sennheiser HD-580, HD-595 or HD-600.

Probably he should consider closed-type headphones as he will use it near a PC, which as is well known produces some annoying noise.

It doesn't produce enough noise to be of any disturbance. I know. Open is good because it allows you to hear if anybody is shouting at you.

I also prefer open-style headphones because it is more naturally the way we hear.

Huh? Please, explain.

-Chris

It's a matter of taste and how much money you have. You'll need to tell us both if you want useful advice. Or do some searches on head-fi.

I just meant that hearing things with closed headphones seems a bit unnatural to me since normally we hear incidental sounds when listening to music. Or listening to anything for that matter. I guess it's a matter of preference. If I was mixing down or mastering some source material I can see the benefit of closed headphones, just to rule out the possiblity of hearing anything else at all that might influence my knob-twiddling decisions on the material. But for listening enjoyment I prefer to let incidental sounds in (the point John Cage made with 4'33" ).

Ah, okay. So you prefer some external sound[noise]? I think that's the 1st time I've seen that claimed as a sound quality preference. Previously I've only seen that being desired due to need[safety, alerts, work, etc.].

-Chris

Are these headphones really as good as they say? I'm thinking of buying these.

I'd much rather use open headphones even when next to a pc. Unless you've got some screamer with ten fans in it or something, it's just not that loud. Closed headphones are not as comfortable for long listening periods, the total enclosure gets hot and sticky. Open lets some air through so your skin can breathe. The other big strike against closed is it's impossible to get closed phones that have the same level of sound quality as a good set of open ones. You're just not going to find a sealed can with the kind of even & flat response that the sennheiser 500 series delivers, at any price.

There is no big difference in sound quality between closed- and open-type headphones to mention that it affects sound quality. And actually headphones with flat and "near-flat" frequency response just don't exist.

Yes, I use RP-HJE50 and can confirm that it has really incredible audio reproduction quality.

If you are just going to drive some fairly low impedance headphones off it then I would avoid internal sound cards all together and get one of these.

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1x.html

The headphone amp inside it is well up to the task of driving most consumer and more sensitive professional headphones, I use one at work with a pair of Sennheiser HD-25. It would be fine for the ear buds you are looking at.

However it wouldn't be any good if you wanted to use some more difficult to drive headphones such as Sennheiser HD-650. I currently use a Terratec DMX-6Fire with my HD-650. Unusually the headphone amp in the drive bay thingie was designed with enough power to drive almost any headphones. However I'm going to change to something where the DACs and amp are external at somepoint as I have problems with interference from other components in the PC.

Well, since 'flatness' is pretty much subjective in your use here, I am not going to address that. However, there is nothing preventing a closed headphone from having an identical frequency response as an open headphone, if the device was designed to do such. It is a matter of the design team's objectives.

FYI, here are a few 'closed' headphones that are considered to be very high in sound quality by many audiophiles, that I've noticed: Sony MDR-R10, Audio Technica ATH-L3000, AKG K-340, AKG K-271S, Sony MDR-CD3000.

-Chris

I meant flatness in terms of the frequency response graph, decibels vs frequency. There's probably a better word than "flat" for that, I dunno. Linear maybe. Anyways, reproducing the sound in the most accurate way possible.
For example, here are headphone.com's measurement graphs of the Sennheiser HD 555 (open):

versus the AKG K271S and Ultrasone HFI-550, two of the better sealed cans:



I think that's not true. There are problems with a sealed headphone that will never go away, like the resonance frequency of the enclosed space. The designers can do various tricks to reduce that, but it never will completely disappear. The non-linear nature of sound and our hearing makes it a very difficult problem, especially in something like a headphone where there is limited space for complex electronics.


I didn't say that good sealed headphones don't exist, just that they are never (or rarely) as good as open designs. They are certainly less common and more expensive than comparable open headphones. Some people prefer closed headphones, which is fine, but I personally wouldn't recommend them to someone without various warnings, particularly on the comfort issue.

I also have to laugh at your list of examples. Three can't be bought for love or money, one is just very very expensive ($400), and one that's reasonable ($200) but is not as good as something $50 cheaper, as demonstrated above..

Well I'm in the middle of putting together a pc that will mainly be used for soft synth's like FL STUDIO and REASON. The thing is I want a decent sound card that would help me with all the necessary I/O's. Also, I need someway of comfortably getting headphones on me since I do most of my stuff in the night, not to mention I live in an apartment. I am also trying to figure out what headphones to buy for this reason. Money is not really the problem. I mean I would rather pay a little extra if I know that I will get all my requirements satisfied. Thanks for all the help!!

Sorry, but this is not any proof. You are comparing drastically different products. Also, these graphs are not actual frequency response graphs of the headphones, but they are measurements of headphones on a dummy-head, which has a serious effect on the high freuqncy measurements. You do not see the actual behaviour of the headphone itself in these graphs. Also, you do not target a measurable as flat respones as possible with headphones, as you would not be compensating for the required response deviations to sound 'flat'. Just one example: a tailing off of high frequencies at a specific rate is required to compensate for the HRTF functions on a head listening to a non-direct coupled to ears sound source in natural circumstances.


There is nothing inherantly wrong with a sealed headphone, and resonance of the 'sealed' space is related to the air volume and compliance/driver, just like a sealed speaker enclosure. This is used usually used to advantage to control the low frequency response of a headphone, if it's a true sealed unit. The anomoly, if there was one, would be located in the low frequency spectrum, in the form of a frequency response anomoly. Not a problem for any system if the enclosed volume was specifically chosen to match the characteristics of the drivers; just like when calculating the cabinet volume for a subwoofer. As for resonances equaling the half-wavelength of the spaces in the volume in the rear chamber, this is also no problem whatsover if the headphone was designed properly. The distances are so small, that the resonances related to 1/2 wavelength modes will not become any issue until the treble band. One example of how this can be eliminated by using a solid paper/plastic backer on the back of the driver to prevent any resonances or interaction at high frequencies with the rear volume[basicly preventing high frequencies from entering the rear enclosure], and then drilling a small hole in the back to allow for air pressure to freely pass between rear volume[to allow for use of the volume for low frequency shaping/enhancement]. This is a method used on several headphones. I have measured the response of one such example[MDR-7506] and the method was worked so well, that using any density of acoustic damping material in teh back enclosure made no difference to the mid/hf response. Another example is to use sufficient acoustic dampening materials. It is trivial to absorb/damp the frequencies in question using thin layers common materials such as wool, fiberglass, open cell urethane foam, etc. If you think that having a sealed rear section is a real problem, then please sit back and consider that almost every one of the world's best tweeters have enclosed backs.



Sealed headphones do not appear to the interest of the market, except for professional use.



You can not prove 'better' sounding by the graphs above. Headphone.com graphs are not terribly useful[look at the low resolution/high smoothing, the huge dB scale] and I already noted that these measurements are made on dummy heads. These measurements can not be directly interpretted to represent what you might hear[once you enter the upper midrange and treble bands], if you are trying to somehow correlate these with speaker frequency response graphs.

-Chris