I think I read a snippet of info on this somewhere, but I can't find it again. Is there a known issue when plugging low impedence headphones into a laptop, that it creates a nasty buzz+background noise?

I have a pair of Sony MDR-EX51's, and when I use them from my laptop, I get the above buzzing. It's actually WORSE if I unplug the power supply. I don't seem to get this with an older pair of Sennheiser's I have, however they are higher impedence (I think that's right, or do I have it backwards?), and the laptop can barely drive them to a decent level even when I crank up all the volume controls.

It sucks cause I like the EX51's and it doesn't bother my g/f when I listen loud

I hate to bump threads, but does anyone have a suggestion here? Maybe some experience with the same problem? I'd hate to have to get some sort of external USB soundcard just to listen to music from my laptop...

Well, it's not the worst thing in the world using an external USB device. I use one myself:

http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/micro/home.aspx

ff123

I would recommend the Behringer UCA202 external USB sound card. It works very well for me, and having owned $400+ sound cards before, to my ears it sounds very nice.

http://www.behringer.com/UCA202/index.cfm?lang=ENG

edit: Oh, and its just $30.

The UCA202 looks really nice. Great price too. In fact, it's on its way to my house

I think thats a good call. Im really happy with mine. Let me know what you think. The only thing I have to complain about is the poor gluing of the Behringer sticker on top of the box. However, it shouldnt affect the sound quality

Just got it in the mail and tried it out. Nice clean sound, no more buzz.

However, is there a way to get this to work in foobar2000 with either Kernel Streaming or ASIO? The website makes it look like it has ASIO support, but I think I need drivers for that. As far as KS goes, I can't seem to get it to work in foobar2000, it doesn't crash, but I don't get playback either.

Ok, I got the Behringer ASIO driver installed and working in foobar2k. Can someone recommend optimal Latency Samples and Blocks setting? It defaults to 2 msec and 2/48 blocks.

This a very late reply, hope you're still here...

Samples and blocks are there to avoid clicks due to buffer underruns. If you encounter such clicks and pops, increase those values. Btw, 2ms is extremely low for music playback (it's intended for real-time tasks). With 50ms or even more you can't go wrong. (I hope you don't mind the playback controls lagging a bit behind because of that?)