Well soundcards have amplifiers too, as does anything with a headphone output. Some are better than others. Some soundcards contain headphone amplifiers that are pretty decent. Those results just showed two amplifiers which gave slightly different frequency responses. Dedicated headphone amplifiers would presumably give a better response than both in general.

just testing sr60 grados, well, not impressed so far, they seem to have their own opinion on how things should sound..., anyone have a good 'make them flat' eq preset for foobar 0.8.x handy?

so far iam here:
http://somestuff.org/sr60.feq

Here's a pretty good frequency response measurement of hte SR60 for you to start with, with what many regard as the world's best headphone (Sennheiser Orpheus) as a baseline.

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.p...pare+Headphones

The SR60 is actually a very well-measuring headphone for its price range, but as you can see, there is room for improvement (including taking down the treble even more than you already are).

Steve999, tnx.

v2:
http://somestuff.org/sr60_v2.feq

(now a bit boomy i guess...)

sennheiser eh-350, about $100 or even less, superb clean sound.

Interesting:

SR60 vs. EH350 with Senn Orpheus as baseline:

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.p...pare+Headphones

Very different headphones, both measuring well in their price range.

Really, unless you are going to spend megabucks on an Orpheus, a good performing headphone plus careful EQ is the answer for maximizing headphone fidelity, in my experience.

To add a bit to the amplifier debate again, you really can't say in general that no soundcard will deliver enough power for your phones.
I say this because I remember my brother using an old Soundblaster awe32 (a soundcard as long as a mainboard ) to drive a pair of speakers at a "normal" volume.

would the perfect amp/sound card be just a DAC and an amp, connected by usb or something?

just testing besyerdynamic dt 770 pro / 80 ($200 range) and they have their own opinion as well..., they seem to have kinda inverted fq response in comparision with grado sr60 (which makes 'american woman' to sound pretty cool, but thats it...).


(Lenny Kravitz :: /Greatest Hits/ :: American Woman (Musepack))

edit: also they seem to be a little harder to drive via soundcard out.

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btw, how would i go about abx-ing foobar's eq vs some other software eq?