Xonar DG with Astro A40 question

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mystupidmouth

Gawd
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Mar 29, 2006
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Hello everyone, I have a quick question. With the Astro A40's do i need to turn on the Headphone amp or is it fine with just using the 2 speaker mode?
 
In the Xonar Audio Center GUI you can select between various speaker configurations or headphones in the Analog Out dropdown. When selecting Headphone option for Analog Out, you can then use the HP Advanced Setting to select the gain tuning according to your usage scenario or matching headphone impedance.

Since the A40's have an impedance of 50 ohms, you should choose the Pro-gaming Mode for 32-64 ohm headphones. That gives a 9 bB boost.
 
jgreen said:
In the Xonar Audio Center GUI you can select between various speaker configurations or headphones in the Analog Out dropdown. When selecting Headphone option for Analog Out, you can then use the HP Advanced Setting to select the gain tuning according to your usage scenario or matching headphone impedance.

Since the A40's have an impedance of 50 ohms, you should choose the Pro-gaming Mode for 32-64 ohm headphones. That gives a 9 bB boost.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is what i was using before but i was unsure if that would mess up my headset. What are the drawbacks to not using that and just using 2 speaker mode?
 
Not really a drawback necessarily, but when the impedance of the headphone is higher, it becomes harder to drive. That is where the increased gain comes into play.

Without the increased gain, you would just need to adjust the volume setting higher to achieve the same sound pressure level as with the lower volume setting in conjunction with the increased gain.

For example, I have a set of Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones that have an impedance of 600 ohms. I can still use them to listen to music from my phone, but I have to max the volume setting out to get decent sound, i.e. sound pressure level/decibels. When I use my desktop external Schiit Asgard 2 headphone amp, I can achive the same level by going to about 11 o'clock on the volume knob. If I turned it up to maximum, I would damage my ears rather quickly.
 
Won't mess it up at all. When they say 32-64, that is for any impedance between 32 ohms and 64 ohms.

Glad I could help.
 
jgreen said:
In the Xonar Audio Center GUI you can select between various speaker configurations or headphones in the Analog Out dropdown. When selecting Headphone option for Analog Out, you can then use the HP Advanced Setting to select the gain tuning according to your usage scenario or matching headphone impedance.

Since the A40's have an impedance of 50 ohms, you should choose the Pro-gaming Mode for 32-64 ohm headphones. That gives a 9 bB boost.
Click to expand...

what do you mean by 9bB?
 
Last edited:
The amplification factor, also called gain, is the extent to which an analog amplifier boosts the strength of a signal. Amplification factors are usually expressed in terms of power.

The decibel (dB), a logarithmic unit, is the most common way of quantifying the gain of an amplifier.
 
I was just going from what the DG manual states in the HP Advanced Setting section. There are three selections available.

VOIP Mode or for <32 ohms headphones - 0 dB boost
Pro-gaming Mode or for 32-64 ohms headphones - 9 dB boost
Exciter Mode or for >64 ohms headphones
 
Last edited:
jgreen said:
I was just going from what the DG manual states in the HP Advanced Setting section. There are three selections available.

VOIP Mode of for <32 ohms headphones - 0 dB boost
Pro-gaming Mode or for 32-64 ohms headphones - 9 dB boost
Exciter Mode or for >64 ohms headphones
Click to expand...

oh ok cool, thanks
 
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