whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

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kensuguro
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whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by kensuguro »

I was mixing stuff at work, nothing too serious, just short background music for internet games. So I finish it up on my new win 7 notebook on trusted akg240, and go home to find out the mix sounds like a pile of dung. Basically, I suspect the headphone outs on the notebook is severely underpowered. That's not the case with my Toshiba at home, which can drive the 240s just like any mixer / audio interface can. (I used k240 both for mixing at work and listening at home)

Problem is that because the underpowered outs cut out most of the mid bass and low end in general, I over compensated and created a muddy, booming, "how did I manage to fit that much bass and muck in there?" kind of a mix.

Short solution is to just use a proper audio interface... but using a full box just to get enough power to my headphones seems very inefficient. I don't need ins, I just need a darn headphone jack out.

I did find cheap units that just do that, listed as headphone amps..
http://www.headphone.com/headphone-amps ... ithead.php
At $150, they're not exactly cheap. A prosonus audio interface costs about the same, and I know the prosonus can drive my cans no problem. (friend has one and I tried it)

On a side note, my focusrite saffire 6 doesn't have enough juice for the k240s. It's okay, but definitely on the weaker side. My cheap behringer XENYX 1002FX (which got fried in Jordan) did a much better job. So it seems like a great headphone out isn't necessarily a standard for cheap audio interfaces.

Anyway, given that a nice headphone out could be a hit or miss, would a dedicated headphone amp be a safer bet? Thoughts?
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dante
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Re: whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by dante »

This DOD is the one I use
DOD headphone amp
DOD headphone amp
dod-460h.jpg (9.68 KiB) Viewed 642 times
And if the price $99 here is true and available

http://www.pssl.com/Headphone-Amps-Acce ... 0&c=DOD&c=

then thats a bargain !
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astroman
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Re: whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by astroman »

Ken, your 'problem' is double-sided, so to say...
first - are the cans regular 240 (600 Ohm) or labelled 'monitor' (55 Ohm) ?
the high impedance version has a very low output on line outs and might even have frequency dependend side effects.
The other aspect is the audio codec chipset of the notebook itself, which does a lot of automatic conversion internally.
(for convenience of matching numerous consumer multi-media formats which often have different sample rates and such)
Imho it can never come close to what a plain audio converter would deliver.
The specs of those 'new' chipsets read impressive, but I never got used to their sound, not even for YouTube and similiar sites with relatively rough audio quality.
You should really check the impedance of the cans - if you happen to have the 600 Ohms, a standard USB interface wouldn't change much.

cheers, Tom
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kensuguro
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Re: whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by kensuguro »

they're the newer k240s at 55ohms. The 600 ohm ones are out of production I think.

I'm just wondering whether it's better to get a dedicatee usb headphone amp, or a cheap audio interface.
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astroman
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Re: whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by astroman »

maybe the Focusrite VRM is something to consider
http://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_vrm_box.htm

cheers, Tom
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braincell
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Re: whats your minimum spec for usb interface?

Post by braincell »

I would consider $150 to be cheap. The Grace Design headphone amp costs nearly $2,000 USD and only has two headphone jacks!
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