Spammy Newbie
Hey! I'm a bit slow responding here...
DF9: Thanks for the links (but maybe a tiny little bit spammy for your first post here...
).
oddsratio: thanks again for the reply.
Bad timing... but my HD 555 recently broke! As much as I loved them, I went for the similar HD 598 when buying new headphones the other day. Do this maybe changes things? Also, I have done much research the last couple of days, about headphones and audio. So interesting...
Anyways, as we can see in this graph;
http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=7&graphID[]=2851&graphID[]=563 , the 555 does require less from the MBP amp compared to the 598, in the bass frequencies. I tried to find out how many ohms the MBP amp can handle but I couldn't find anything...
Now with the 598 and not 555, I think I could benefit a little bit more with an external DAC/amp... I wonder if there are any stores here in Japan where I can bring my laptop and headphones, and trying different ones standing right there. haha... but it's so hard to decide without hearing them for myself!
Sorry for not getting very far in this matter...
Hey did not to want to sell anything to anyone, if that's what you mean by Spammy! From your post as a MR Newbie you asked about Creative 70SB109500000 Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro THX Certified USB 2.0 Sound Card or Creative 70SB124000001 Sound Blaster X-Fi HD THX Certified USB 2.0 Sound Card. I have one of each and they run fine on OS X 10.7.4 or Windows 7 Ultimate. The SonicStudio Amarra works just as well if not Better for Stereo, or into a 5.1/7.1 sound card without having to drag along extra hardware to support Great Audio Performance… And it is a FREE 15 Day Trial Download, if you don't think it sounds as good as you like, DON'T BUY IT, JUST UNINSTALL IT! But most listeners are very surprised at the Sound Quality of iTunes AAC 256kbps + Amarra at $189 or Amarra Hi-Fi at $49, specially on a Laptop with HD Headphones or External Speakers! Give It A Try You Just Might Be Surprised! But if you are looking for SACD/DVD-Audio 5.1/7.1 quality sound it will take a lot more than just CL X-Fi 5.1 USB SC or a DAC. Just a few options on the software/file-format side of High-End Audio… One thing to remember garbage in garbage out!
By the way, that's why iTunes 10.+.? Went from AAC 128kbps Bit Rate (about = MP3) (iTunes 8/9 and older versions) to AAC 256kbps Bit Rates with the option to import 256/320kbps Bit Rates or Convert to MP3, AIFF, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless ALAC/ALE, from AAC 128kbps/MP3 Lower Bit Rates! The point is smaller file size to fit smaller HDD space systems! Smaller file sizes mostly used for iPod, iPhone, MP3 Players, smaller HDD's on older PC's. If there is any song that is at a Lower Bit Rate, simply right click it and select Create Apple Lossless Version for the Best Quality iTunes Bit Rate.
Purchased my first PC in 1987… Apple II, and have owned more than twenty different Mac/Windows machines… Desktops, Workstations, Laptops, and tablets. I run LogicStudio, SoundBlade HD, Ableton 8, ProTools (on Windows 7 Ultimate), and Yes, I am an Audiophile, and I personally own a myriad of Very High-End Audio Equipment… some Stereo only Systems (5), some 5.1 SurroundSound A/V Systems (2), some 9.3 SurroundSound A/V Systems (4), as well as 32" to 65" Plasma's (4) and LED's (5), plus a multitude of separate components to play any-format or create a plethora of system options.
Oh just to let you know I bought my first pair of Sennheiser SD100 Headphones Jan.1973, first audio system in Sept.1973, upgraded it in 1974 to… TEAC 3340 Reel to Reel (1), Nakamichi BX-125 (1), Uher UHD130 (1) UHD cassette tape players, then first CD player Denon DCD-1800R (1) in 1986 (only about two to three hundred CD's available at that time), Bang&Olufsen SLT Turntable (1), Braun LV1020 Speakers (4), then Denon AVR-5308CI(A), DBP-4010UDCI Reference CD/SACD/DVD/BD, then Denon AVP-A1HDCI(A)/POA-A1HDCI Separates, DVD-A1UDCI Universal Disc Player, Magnat Magnasphere Delta's (6 EA), Later on Luxman PreAmp/Amp (2), Stax PreAmp/Amp (2), MartinLogan Audio/Speakers, Rotel Audio Components, Bowers&Wilkins 802D's (4), B&W SW's (2), Veladyne Powered SW's (3), STAX SR-009, Sennheiser HD800, Grado PS1000/GS1000i, Denon HD8000, B&W P5 Headphones, 4 DAC/ADC's in the four to five digit range, and a myriad of hardware components too much list ALL!
More than 20K+ High-End Vinyl LP's, 25K+ CD/SACD/DVDAudio/BD-BDXL Disc's, (LP's/Disc's not dollars) my iTunes Music is 786GB+, most in 256kbps/320kbps AAC, and all 128kbps AAC files from iTunes 9 back to iTunes 1 are converted to AppleLossless! Also have 1700GB+ AIFF/FLAC/Apple Lossless files on a Music Only Server to feed a several DAC's for any of the above Systems! My MBP 17" iTunes+Amarra 2.4 Full Version (not Hi-Fi) has 499.85GB of Music for travel or DJ or ? Everyone who hears its output asks "what did I do to get that kind of sound out of laptop?"
You can spend all the money you can afford on all the aforementioned equipment (Hardware or Software), but if you are looking to get the best sound out of the equipment you can afford the better the input quality the better the sound out… As far as DAC/ADC's if you don't input BitPerfect Audio You will Not Get BitPerfect sound out any Headphones, or Speakers, or A/V systems. So if you are using any digital source (PC - Mac/Windows) Jitter from Clock Speed/Clock Cycles are always an issue. Some of us have spent tens of thousands of dollars over a lot of years trying to achieve that ultimate sound quality, at BitPerfect 44kHz-48kHz-96kHz-192kHz-384kHz Highest Sample Rate / 256kbps+< to get the Highest Bit Rate and as low a THD as possible.
Think of a Hi-Def TV if you put in 540i/720p/1080i source on any of todays/tomorrows High-End Plasma/LED TV's it still won't look as good as BD3D 1080p or 4K SuperHD quality video. Sound is just the same thing… remember garbage in garbage out! My point is... The Better the Source the Better the Playback!
SonicStudio is a Commercial Audio Software Engineering Company and their SoundBlade HD : 24/192 - The Master's Toolbox is a $2K Pro 8/16-track recording editing and delivery software package. Amarra is a Mac OS X Audio Software package for sound enhancement. Another note I do not recommend any one solution for all listeners situations just another option to consider!
One more thought on a Newbie Spammy Like Post… isn't that the pot calling the kettle, only newbie on this UserName/Handle/or whatever semantics you want you use… Just did not use older username for this posting. Please do a little more research into Audiophile, Hi-End HD A/V Equipment, HD Sound Editing, Computer HD Audio, HD SoundSource etc…
There are a lot of things for all of us to learn each day, and I am still learning new things everyday, and have considerable more years researching this subject, but respect goes along way!
"Absorb what's useful, discard the superfluous" Bruce Lee
Good Luck, Have a Great Music Listening Experience!
Macbook Pro 17'' 8,3 (Late 2011) − Intel 2.5 GHz i7-2860QM / 1920x1200 LED / AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024MB / 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3L / 480GB SSD (OS X/Win7U)(Bay1) + 960GB SSD (Storage)(Optical/Bay2) / Mac SuperDrive in an External Enclosure + Pioneer BDR-XD04 BDXL-RW / Wintec 48GB, 64GB & 128GB SSD ExpressCards / Sonnet & OWC eSATA ExpressCards & Multi-Card Reader-Writer ExpressCards (3) 27" Thunderbolt Displays
Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010) − Two Intel 2.93 GHz Xeon X5670 / Two NVIDA Quatro 4GB GDDR5 / 96GB 1333MHz DDR3 / 1TB PCI ExpressSSD (OS X/Win7U) + Four 3TB Enterprise HDD's (Bay1-4) + 300TB External RAID Storage / Mac SuperDrive + Pioneer BDR-206MBK BD Burner/Player / (3) 27" Cinema Displays
Macbook Pro Retina 15'' 9,1 (Mid 2012) − Intel 2.7 GHz i7-3870QM / 2880x1800 R-LED / NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024MB GDDR5 / 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3L / 768GB Flash Storage (OS X/Win7U)
iPhone 4S 64GB iPhone 4 32GB iPhone 3 16GB (2) iPad 3 64GB (New iPad) iPad 2 64GB
** Windows 7 Ultimate always runs Best on Mac Hardware **
