Do I Need A Soundcard For The Sennheiser PC 350 SE

[TheKolapo00]

I am planning on getting the Sennheiser PC 350 SE but I currently have no sound card for amp so I don't know if that will lower the quality of the microphone and sound. I don't know if my on board sound will work. I was looking at a few things and this one looked nice.

http/www.amazon.com/Creative-Performance-Headphone-Integrated-Microphone/dp/B00EZT7RE4/

The headset is currently $160 and I don't really want to go over $200 with the amp or sound card included.

 

[soldier5637]

Very very few times out of a few hundred will you need a sound card. Im an audiophile and a fellow Senn enthusiast. I love perfection in music and noise reproduction, but no, you do not need a sound card for those. More and more often the audio drivers on mother boards are better and better, some even have a dedicated audio section like my Msi 970 gaming Mobo. So unless you are doing something like needing to compress audio through a toslink cable to get surround sound, or more than just two channels period, then no, you very likely will not need one.

 

[TheKolapo00]

Very very few times out of a few hundred will you need a sound card. Im an audiophile and a fellow Senn enthusiast. I love perfection in music and noise reproduction, but no, you do not need a sound card for those. More and more often the audio drivers on mother boards are better and better, some even have a dedicated audio section like my Msi 970 gaming Mobo. So unless you are doing something like needing to compress audio through a toslink cable to get surround sound, or more than just two channels period, then no, you very likely will not need one.

My mobo is the gigabyte ud3h and I think it has on board sound. Will the mic quality be the same with or without a soundcard/amp.

 

[soldier5637]

That board will keep you happy with your sound quality as it does indeed have good audio drivers and a dedicated audio section. Mic quality should not differ between either or.

 

[TheKolapo00]

That board will keep you happy with your sound quality as it does indeed have good audio drivers and a dedicated audio section. Mic quality should not differ between either or.

I just realized I don't think I ever installed the audio drivers for this mobo

 

[soldier5637]

Uh-oh. Yeah get 'er done there, drivers are always a necessary thing. Should be info and tools on Gigabytes website for it or a CD that came with the Mobo.

 

[TheKolapo00]

Uh-oh. Yeah get 'er done there, drivers are always a necessary thing. Should be info and tools on Gigabytes website for it or a CD that came with the Mobo.

I keep reading that the headset will sound like tin cans if I don't have 150 ohm sound card/ amplifier

 

[soldier5637]

I know that with my Sennheiser HD 518's they actually sounded infinitely worse with my ASUS DGX sound card I had. Really, you're Mobo should be good. But, if it comes to it and you're not satisfied on a personal level, than order a sound card after the fact and see if it helps any. One thing though, from one senn guy to another: Do not even put them on your ears until they've been playing for a few hours! They sound like cardboard for the first few hours, but the transformation over the first few hours into the pristine sound Sennheiser is notorious for is great.

 

[Brilhasti]

With the on-board sound on either the ASUS Hero VII, or Z97 PRO, I found these headphones to indeed sound a bit tinny. However, their positional sound accuracy and the flat but tinny frequency response is amazing. I highly recommend throwing another amplifier (tube or fet) or a sound card with a capable op-amp in if you want to jam out with some good bass with them. They are 150ohm headphones after all.

On a side note, the mic is high quality too!

 

[silverbot01]

You keep saying sound card, you don't need any such thing. Just a dac/amp combo like the Fiio E10k will do you. So if you need the amplification it's there. Most sound cards, especially just on board (no breakout box) aren't amplified. Cards with an external dock that specifically mention amplification would be what you needed, but then you are just paying way more than what you need to. This isn't the early 2000s, no one needs EAX support anymore, you just need a way to output and, in your case, amplify audio.