Sound card and headphone advice ?

Hello, I have a Logitech G35 headset and recently I've been thinking of getting a better set of headphones along with a decent sound card , Thing is i am limited to what I can find in the market , I've heard a lot of good things about the sennheisers and i did look around for them , the only ones i could find were the HD 555 and the HD 598 , the HD 598 being way over my budget . As for the sound card , the only ones i could find were cheap creative ones and a couple of highend ones , those are the ones i could find :

The sound blaster x-fi titanium fatal1ty champion series

http://www.amazon.com/Express-Blaster-Titanium-Fatal1ty-Champion/dp/B001BDPLJA/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330367901&sr=1-5

and the creative sound blaster titanium 70SB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102024

The price difference between the two is not that high where i live, so i could get any of them . so,

1)which sound card is better ?

2)would they work fine with the HD555 or would i need an amp ?,

3)would i notice a difference in quality going from the G35s?

4)is an amp necessary ? again , I am limited to what i can find.

Thanks in advance .

Consider the Headphone FAQ (sticky) at the top of the forum for suggestions on headphones.

As for sound card, Asus and HT|Omega are generally considered superior in terms of value to most Creative Sound Blaster options. Some of the other users will certainly have suggestions on particular models, though my understanding is that the value cards lie at the $40-$50 and $200 price points, with little in between.

Good luck,

Boz

Thanks alot for your input . but again I'm limited to what i found which were the two cards i linked in my OP, btw how does the X-fi platinum Fatal1ty compare to the platinum HD ? Is the Fatal1ty good enough ?ultrapc

[QUOTE="ultrapc"]Thanks alot for your input . but again I'm limited to what i found which were the two cards i linked in my OP, btw how does the X-fi platinum Fatal1ty compare to the platinum HD ? Is the Fatal1ty good enough ?NamelessPlayer

I live in Dubai , i just linked the cards so you guys know what I'm talking about :P anyway, I'll look around some more for the titanium HD , if not then i'll get the baseline titanium .thanks again. ultrapc

So the only sennheisers you can find are the 555 and 558?

So the only sennheisers you can find are the 555 and 558?

kraken2109

From what I can see the less expensive card does everything the Fatal1ty does at a lower price point, but lacks certain connectivity and Dolby Digital Live, the latter of which you only really use for home theater purposes. Both cards support EAX 5.0 and X-Fi CMSS-3D natively, which are the two functions you would be concerned about. They use mostly the same DAC and have identical SNR, so you're not sacrificing sound quality by going with the less expensive card. In my opinion, save yourself a few bucks. BozBozanimal

The only difference between the Titanium and Titanium Fatal1ty is that the Fatal1ty has more X-RAM which, aside from a select few years ago, games or any applications never use. You'll still get DDL and DTS-Connect. Hell there are drivers out there that unlock them for free and are much better than the default Creative drivers. Highly recommend searching the internet for Daniel-K or other modder's drivers.

Then i guess I'll just go with the baseline Titanium card , Should i expect a big upgrade in music / gaming sound quality going from on board audio to sound card/HD 555 combo ? ultrapc