Jasmin

This thing literally circumvents your integrated audio - this is simply a usb sound card - did you test with it already or literally just bought it and waiting for shipment? Have you tried #1 from my last post?

Try using an older driver. Seen few posts from November that the newest one broke something - so something from earlier than November 2017. If still nothing - replace the motherboard. Internet agrees that its audio has issues

Update the sound drivers and if it still misbehaves on the integrated audio, but all is ok on the usb one - then ye, there's a chance the mobo needs to be replaced. Checking your mobo it seems a lot of people are complaining about various audio issues. Seen few claims Gigabyte screwed up the design and they try to replace the mobo with a different model if sent on RMA.

In ideal world you'd want your cable being absolutely straight right by the plug and near the headphones themselves. Taking example of your power supply the cables on it are "stressed" by being bent towards left. Most heavy duty cables are fine, but over time they can get torn inside the heatshrink. This is especially true when the cable is bent and hangs, having to carry all of its weight on the plug/heatshrink. There're so many unknowns in this case. So this is the first thing you actually plug via the 3.5mm audio port? Or at least the first thing with a "heavy" cable - at least compared to apple earbuds? Wireless headsets usually use usb dongles, often with inbuilt audio interface, so potentially you never tested the 3.5mm ports with other headphones? I'd say the priority would be to test the 3.5mm audio ports with other wired headphones in similar conditions. There's an option of rolling back your audio drivers and just fiddling with audio settings. https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?56335-G20-Sound-Issue or https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?60621-Issues-With-headphone-jack-on-Asus-Rog-G751jy Other things that come to mind - your settings change when you plug in - to something either super low quality or too cpu intensive. There's a chance the internal audio cable got damaged. There's a chance it's pressed against cpu/gpu and heats up/gets interference. Bad power supply or terribly unstable current from the outlet could be an issue, but testing for is a pain... would you happen to have easy access to a full power audio? some hifi/mini hifi? ... Will try to be constructive about it: 1. Need to ensure the headphones are fine - the simplest one to tick off. Did you buy them new or used? You mentioned bass distortion - what do you mean by that? Are these your first open headphones? Is the sound ok on other devices, no matter the loudness? Can you take them off and crank them up to the point you can listen to songs by just holding them near your ear? Any issues then? Is everything all right if you fiddle around with the plug/cable/headphones on other devices? Any cutouts/distortion/noise? Can you test them on another desktop/hifi and do all those things? 2. Next thing to test is the 3.5mm port on your pc. Best thing to jam another pair of headphones into it - ones you know are working - and play about with them in similar conditions. If the port is broken, the other one should be fine unless you have really bad luck. If the headphones are fine, but both port behave oddly, then it could be issues with the sound card - roll back drivers/resintall/reset settings. Update bios. Did the sound degradation increase after a recent windows update? If so, roll it back. Would be nice to connect USB-based sound card and test then. Anything more - after these.

If you have a decent motherboard - in most cases you dont need additional card. Real upgrade at this stage would be at 200-300$ level & going to external usb card. If you have a lenovo laptop or a low end/business mobo - definitely. Any decent soundblaster. Something like that (https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Surround-System-SB1095/dp/B0044DEDCA) could do it (it's ok & external). If you need an internal card - this looks ok enough https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-XONAR-Headphone-Audio-Card/dp/B003ZXDOL6/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1520338383&sr=1-2&keywords=xonar+dg&dpID=411rdurQRkL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch To be clear - unless you want a higher quality audio with higher quality headphones (150$+) there's no point going too heavy on it. Biggest jump is going from internal to external, as the external cards avoid the electrical interference you have inside your tower. If you are not too crazy on it, the 100$ range has some decent enough external products (like the FiiO E10K). For anything cheaper, only if you have really bad audio solution - said lenovo laptops or very cheap mobos.

Definitely not a power issue. Unless you are running them via 70's amp that is. If your output was too strong, the headphones would just be louder than on other devices and potentially they could pop and die after you reach a volume level well beyond human pain threshold. Actually the reverse could be true to some degree - your phone and laptop are too weak to drive the headphones properly and get the issues to manifest. But since these are only 32 ohm and the extra info you provided... Where do you plug in your headphones? This sounds like a wonky front audio. Try plugging at the back or vice versa. Do you have any other headphones to test the pc vs iphone etc? That being said it can be also a dying port in your pc or a torn plug/cable in your headphones. How is your cable being stressed when connected to each of these devices? I'd imagine that laptop/phone have the cable by the plug resting on the table while the pc puts some strain on the connector due to cable's weigth. You don't have to run a cable over to damage it.

All right, this is a bit obvious, but have you checked the balance in audio device settings (both windows and whatever sound drivers you have)? You need both L&R setup to the same level.

They are not comparable in the slightest. The 500 lineup is closer to 5$ earbuds than to the 600 series. I literally have the 558-based senn's headset for the work laptop, and the 650's (and the 6xx are very similar apparently) as my daily drivers, sitting about 2cm apart on my desk now. The closest comparison i could think off... Turn off all the lows, add two tins to the cans, flatten all the highs, play some white noise in the background while listening to anything and then put 3 pairs of socks on your ears. That's how the 558's sound in comparison to the 600 series. I've seen the HD 650 "be discontinued" every 6 months for the past couple of years. Every single time it goes "omg, store X said they are discontinued, they know what they are talking about so tis must be truth". Unless there's an official announcement from Sennheiser, I would not pay any attention to it.Both the 600 and 650 are super popular staples, It would be a suicide to replace them without a clearly superior pair that combines all the positives of both.

I'd suggest these: https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-461i-Headset-Control/dp/B015X1CCKQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520323626&sr=8-1&keywords=sennheiser+461#customerReviews Buuuuuut the ~40$ price range is where you lose the most money on headphones, as they are quite literally built to not last If you could find yourself a deal for used senn's hd 380 pro (https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-380-PRO-Headphones/dp/B001UE6I0G/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1520323400&sr=8-20&keywords=sennheiser+hd) then it's completely different level of sound, and the key failing components are replaceable - they would go used for about 50-70$ a couple of years back

I recommend OCCT and second the opinion - P95 runs hotter than anything else I've ever done on my PC ever. Also repeats of Cinebench to test for a more real workload stability. I had OC's that run Cinebench just fine and never crashed, even though they couldn't handle P95 due to temp spikes

AS long as it's a phono, not phone to 3.5 - you nailed it

I had something similar - the only thing that worked was deleting cookies for youtube and restarting the browser (resintalling the browser doesnt do it) - load youtube, click on the Secure marking with a lock and clear cookies from there. One more thing - occasionally issues with audio device cause youtube to go haywire - updating/resintalling audio drivers could be a thing.

Man, headphones all the way! As long as these are not some craptastic dr boom by skreee, it only shows you care about audio. Speaking from a perspective of a person who wore hd 380 pro daily (super recommended for travel/commuting btw). Sure some people will turn heads or perhaps even comment, BUUUUUUT if someone is wearing headphones you can be almost sure that they won't make trouble in whatever means of transport you are using etc, which is a net positive. The only complaints I ever heard where from my mother and grandma, who had this idea that public transport should be used to socialize and talk to them fine people, like it's first class train from the early 20th century

The left&right output from a dac/amp is not an issue - single 3.5 stereo jack to seperate L/R jack cables are extremely common and cheap and there's no change in quality. The shiit stack I fully recommend. There are 2 websites in europe that source them - I'd try asking both when they restock. In my opinion - worth the wait. I use the Magni 2 Uber (basically the older version of magni 3) as a driver for my HD650s, and it hits the spot perfectly. The classic alternative is the O2 odac combo - I found a website from switzerland that sources them for europe, though overall the cost was higher than the shiitstack last time I checked and I never took liking to their "omg, dis be da only amp evah, pay more = noob". Nevertheless the consensus is that it's very good. When it comes to Fulla 2, I was checking it as an option for my wife's laptop - ended up finding a number of reviews mentioning slight hiss/white noise when no audio is playing and some other occasional issues. In the end I got the FiiO for her - it's ok, but i'd not recommend it either. Regards, Jasmin EDIT: There's an odd... thing that I could recommend if you need audio input too - Yamaha AG03 - I got it for my work laptop and it's been stable and without any hiccups for the past 6 months of usage. Aesthetically it's a bit peculiar and it's not a dedicated amp/dac - it just does it as well.

The idea is that you set it up when you want to start playing, and let it run the ping in the background - it will have no impact on your experience, but when you get the dc you can alt-tab and check the prompt (which is still running the ping - thats the '-t' part of the command) - you may notice a line with "timed out" or with 300ms response time instead of usual 20-70 (whatever your connection is). If you had nothing, it points to something between your ISP & EA, or EA directly. If you have a clear outlier - it's either your end or the ISP