audiophiles, I have a question

[Purenight]

I have a Gigabyte H81m-H. I have been looking at the Sennheiser G4ME One, but it has a 50 ohm impedance. I dont know if my "cheap" mobo will be able to push the headset to make it sound ok or should I buy a decent sound card like the new Creative Sound Blaster Z. Everything is linked below and thanks in advance for your help.



Motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4737#ov

Headset: http://en-us.sennheiser.com/gaming-headset-game-one

Sound Card: http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-z

[mrgreenthump]

50 ohm and under is considered as low impedance, meaning pretty much anything can run them.. It's only with like 150/300/600 ohm that you need amplification.

Sound quality on the cheap motherboard is a whole another thing.

Also audiophiles really don't like sound cards as they are as expensive as a DAC, but with a DAC you usually get way better quality.

[Purenight]

So then how bad is my onboard audio then?

[mrgreenthump]

So then how bad is my onboard audio then?

I don't know, it's probably acceptable. For most people they are just fine.. In the end though it's down to you and your ears

[aysatsana]

So then how bad is my onboard audio then?

Onboard audio for that headset is fine. Even with a 1000$ amp/dac setup I doubt you will hear a difference in an A/B test for those headphones. I personally have a schiit dac/amp and I can honestly tell you that I don't hear a difference at all between that and the onboard audio for low impedance headphones like the HD558 for example. For my 600ohm DT880 the amp definately helps.

Basically, no. Don't get a soundcard, you won't hear a difference. Just get your headset and enjoy it

[Purenight]

Cheer guys thanks for the imput

[Sonatine185]

I have the hd 598 which is pretty similar, but I noticed a significant difference coming from the motherboard realtek audio to even a budget fiio e10.