Headphone purchase advice (sub £200) Bought K702/E17

HSH28 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 12:40 pm wrote:Pretty strawberry floating awesome so far, not quite sure what the E17's are doing at the moment, but the headphones are amazing.

Question for anyone more used to having high quality headphones, what's the advice on volume? My normal inclination is to turn the volume up as high as I possibly can without hearing any distortion. With this combination that appears to be as high as it will let me, any problem with that as far as the equipment is concerned? Don't want to break anything.

You shouldn't run into any problems. You want to set your digital source volume at max, then amplify further as necessary. My setup has my windows volume at max, running to my Fiio E07K sitting at Vol 30, then my Fiio E09K at about 11 O'Clock going to my HD 650s.

Your ideal setting should be something that's comfortable to listen to, and where you don't have to change the volume setting between loud and soft sections of a piece. I will admit that sometimes you just want to crank up the volume and dance round the room, and that's ok. Just remember that high volume playback will damage your hearing, so try and find a point where you're still blowing your socks off, but not your ear drums in.

Got any thoughts on burn-in for headphones?

HSH28 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:26 pm wrote:Got any thoughts on burn-in for headphones?

No harm in it. Leave em on overnight.

Take them off first though.

I want to buy the AKG K550 headphones. Closed back as my room is quite noisy.
I have a soundcard with 2.1 speakers plugged in. Will I be able to plug these in simultaneously?

[iup=3508760]<]:^D[/iup] wrote:I want to buy the AKG K550 headphones. Closed back as my room is quite noisy.
I have a soundcard with 2.1 speakers plugged in. Will I be able to plug these in simultaneously?

Do you have a front panel audio connector?

I believe so. But I think I can plug my headphones into the FlexiJack (light blue) on my X-Fi audio card. here's a picture of the ports. Will that work Wickle?

I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

Do your speakers have a headphone socket? If not, no. Consider a USB audio device such as the fiio e7.

Thanks guys.

I'll see what my options are/what works when it arrives.

Plugged it into my speaker headphone input - sounds great. Very happy with the purchase

[iup=3508784]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

How does that work? Does the front panel port, which is connected to the motherboard, acknowledge the sound card in a PCI/PCI-E slot on the motherboard so you don't need to plug the headphones into the ports at the back of the PC that are part of the sound card?

[iup=3508828]Stugene[/iup] wrote:Do your speakers have a headphone socket? If not, no. Consider a USB audio device such as the fiio e7.

Would it be possible to use the Fiio to play audio from two different sources (e.g. PC and Wii U) out of one set of speakers/headphones?

[iup=3510045]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3508784]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

How does that work? Does the front panel port, which is connected to the motherboard, acknowledge the sound card in a PCI/PCI-E slot on the motherboard so you don't need to plug the headphones into the ports at the back of the PC that are part of the sound card?

Hi Dark Dragon as I've discovered you need to connect the front panel wire/connector directly to the soundcard itself, not to the motherboard (as that goes to onboard only)

[iup=3510045]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3508784]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

How does that work? Does the front panel port, which is connected to the motherboard, acknowledge the sound card in a PCI/PCI-E slot on the motherboard so you don't need to plug the headphones into the ports at the back of the PC that are part of the sound card?

Like I said, you connect the front panel to the sound card. You can then set it in the Creative options to mute speakers when headphones get plugged in, and they unmute when you unplug the headphones.

[iup=3510076]<]:^D[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3510045]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3508784]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

How does that work? Does the front panel port, which is connected to the motherboard, acknowledge the sound card in a PCI/PCI-E slot on the motherboard so you don't need to plug the headphones into the ports at the back of the PC that are part of the sound card?

Hi Dark Dragon as I've discovered you need to connect the front panel wire/connector directly to the soundcard itself, not to the motherboard (as that goes to onboard only)

I had no idea that it was possible to do that! I've had a look at pictures of my sound card and there appears to be a set of front panel pins on it. If it's not too hot this weekend, I'll have a go at moving the cables from my motherboard to the sound card.

[iup=3510099]Winckle[/iup] wrote:Like I said, you connect the front panel to the sound card. You can then set it in the Creative options to mute speakers when headphones get plugged in, and they unmute when you unplug the headphones.

Ah, I see now. That's pretty cool.

Thanks for the replies, gentlemen.

[iup=3510045]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3508784]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I dunno, light blue is normally line in, but I do realise that you can do clever things on x-fi cards.

I'd still rather use front panel connected to my sound card, simply so it's easier to plug in and out. That's what I do with my x-fi card.

How does that work? Does the front panel port, which is connected to the motherboard, acknowledge the sound card in a PCI/PCI-E slot on the motherboard so you don't need to plug the headphones into the ports at the back of the PC that are part of the sound card?

[iup=3508828]Stugene[/iup] wrote:Do your speakers have a headphone socket? If not, no. Consider a USB audio device such as the fiio e7.

Would it be possible to use the Fiio to play audio from two different sources (e.g. PC and Wii U) out of one set of speakers/headphones?

Dunno about the USB audio support for the wii u, but the best solution to that is using the e09s RCA inputs for the wii and the USB input for the pc and switching between them.

So I connect my PC to the Fiio via USB and the Wii U to the Fiio using an audio cable?

[iup=3512143]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:So I connect my PC to the Fiio via USB and the Wii U to the Fiio using an audio cable?

I don't think there is a direct jack output for sound on the Wii U.

You can output sound from the Wii U using a Wii AV (or Component) cable, but there is no input for that on an E7*. You could use an E09 but that's another £109 and you might be better off with some other system anyway.

EDIT - I guess what you really need to know is if a Phono Female to 1x 3.5mm Male Jack Audio Adapter would work, they do exist.

That would work and they're about a quid from Maplin or wherever, just plug it into the E7 line-in jack. You'll see no discernible benefit from the Fiio though because the onboard Wii U DAC has done the work already.

There's no way to bypass that either unfortunately since the Wii U has no optical out (why?!). You'd need to go HDMI > HDMI Receiver > Speakers to get the best sound out of the Wii U (inc 5.1 surround)

PS4 on the other hand supports many USB DAC's if it's of interest to you.

Just ordered a mk2 Aune T1 to go with my SR325i's, can't wait to give it a try. Had anyone had any experience with using DAC's on android (HTC One) with an OTG usb cable? I'm hoping it'll just be plug and play.