Should I Get a Heaphone Amp?

[Yasashii]

I have the Asus Xonar DX 7.1 sound card and Pioneer SE - M531 headphones. I'm satisfied with my bass when the headphones vibrate on my head. I know, I know, feel free to judge me, but that's how I enjoy my music and stuff.

The thing is that if I turn the volume up (usually past the 50% margin) the bass gets "squashed" sometimes. It's a very similar effect to having a normalization feature enabled (I don't actually have anything of the sort enabled). It's clear that these headphones can't take this much input just like that.

So here's my thinking: I could set the volume to, say, 25% in Windows and then use a headphone amp to make it louder. In my head, at that point the headphones should be able to keep up with my demands because I would be supplying them with more power to drive the drivers.

I don't know if that's how it works in real life though, because I'm not an audio engineer and I can't borrow a headphone amp from a friend because none of them have one. Before I spend money on an amp I'd like to know whether this will actually work.

So here's my question: Will my headphones be able to output loud bass without a "normalization" effect if I amplify the output from my sound card? Or is it a matter of getting better headphones?

[Sack]

You're looking at getting some new headphones, these guys aren't power hungry either, and also don't blow out your earballs man.

[SSL]

The DX does not have a headphone output as far as I know, so you would benefit from an amp. If it does have one, it wouldn't be very substantial.