pixote

one guy told me that he bought a dac and when he started to listen to music on him with his headphones that than a murmur came on the sound which he didn t have before, so he told me that the best way is that i go with my headphones and my laptop to the store and try the dac on it but the problem is that there where i live (croatia) doesn t exist any store with such product, so the only thing i can do is to buy online such a product without trying it, so that s why i write so much i want to be sure that i don t order something wrong ( i ve already bought before 2 things wrong on the net, so i don t wann make the same question again)

that are the specification of my headphones senn hd 558 -Frequency response 15 – 28000 Hz THD, total harmonic distortion < 0.2 % (1 kHz/100 dB SPL) Sound pressure level (SPL) 112 dB Impedance 50 ? which caracteristics and specifications should a dac have so that i know that the sound would be good enough for my headphones

i ve mostly interested for the Nuforce Icon HD (350$) i ve read that on the nuforce icon hd site about its specification: The Nuforce Icon HD incorporates a full-speed USB DAC (24bit/96kHz) and a headphone-amplifier circuit i don t know much about such things , so i want to ask you what does 24bit/96kHz stand for, what does that bit/khz mean i readed a review which wrote a guy who ordered that nuforce icon hd, he is very happy wit it, he connects his headphones Denon AH-D5000(who are double more expensiver than mines) and is very satisfied with it so i thought if that dac can fill in and amplify his double more expensiver headphones,than it should be good for my headphones too but i saw that that guy who wrote the text has a apple laptop which is much more expensiver than my, could this be a problem(because people told me that the laptop hasn t any influence to the sound quality of music , if you listened to music with usb dac)

i have a pc hp compaq nc8230 (audio specification:AC '97,Sound Blaster Pro Audio Output Sound card .Compliant Standards AC '97, Sound Blaster Pro .Audio Input Microphone) i bought phones sennheiser hd 558, mostly i listen to music in wma ( my original cds copied on hard disk) and mp3 formats(downloaded from torrent sites like piratebay,demonoid,...) my soundcard isn t good enough for such great phones and on the previous forum threads most of forum people told me that it isn t smart to buy just an quality headphone amp because my main music source (my sound card) is low quality, so the first and most important thing is that i have a high quality soundcard, i want to buy an external usb high quality soundcard or external dac(they told me that that is the same thing as an soundcard,even better) that has a headphone amp on itself people told me if i buy a external soundcard and install it,that the first soundcard which is integrated on my computer wont have any effect on the sound anymore so if that s true all what they say to me,than i can get a great sound just buying an quality external soundcard, one of the main problems i have had previous with my music on the laptop(besides the low quality) is when i listen to music by maximum volume than i hear a murmur(or bad noise, dont know how to call that,my english is bad) on the sound, i want to be sure that that wont happen anymore when i buy that new external soundcard idont want an internal soundcard, i just want an external soundcard(with an hq head.amp) because its easier to connect it with usb to the pc and so i dont need to go to a shop that someone installats -i want someone who is really an expert for such things that suggest me whats the best external soundcard for my sennheiser hd 558 phones and my laptop hp compaq nc8230 my friend has a hifi Philips MC M772/12 ,, i con nected my sennheiser hd 558 headphones to the hifi and listened to music on it,and was were satisfied with the sound which ext.soundcard or dac (with headphone amps) should i buy that i can get such sound that i have when i conected those phones to philips MC M772/12 ,, http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/m/mcm772_12/mcm772_12_pss_aen.pdf (fro(( jiijij(t((shhhhh the specifications for that hifi are on that site the money which i want to spend for that ext.soundcard is beetween 300 and 400 dollars, if its a little bit more expensive than that price it won t be a big problem, please i want that people answer to me that are real experts for such things thanks in advance