Looking for headphones and sound card

It's been a while with my tecra m4 and my pair of sony in ear headphones have died. Thus I am looking to buy a good pair of headphones to replace them.
However I was wondering wether or not I should also upgrade the sound card. I'm not much of an audiophile since my last computer a much older desktop had a native sound card and by comparison the laptop sounds much better. So I'm not sure if I would notice a difference.
Also what sound card and what pair of headphones should I buy? I just can't figure out what to get since I don't know much about sound and there are so many headphones and technologies to choose from. I don't mind paying for quality, but only if I can actually hear a difference. I mainly want it to watch movies and play a few games at night without waking anyone else up.

 

Get the heaphones first then if you feel you need a new sound card you can get it though it does not seem like you need one.

 

Well i'd get some nice closed headphones if you don't want the noise to leak.
Try looking at http://www.headphone.com/guide/by-headphone-type/sealed-noise-canceling-type/

I think their ratings and comments are fair assessments. I don't know if this is the cheapest place/best place, but they organize their headphones nicely and have intelligent things to say.

They do make headphone amps sound really important though. Most modern soundcards have enough strength to drive headphones without a separate headphone amp. I wouldn't buy one unless you're feel like splurging or want to use big headphones with a puny walkman.

As for actually replacing the soundcard, I agree with zazonz. See if you're happy with just new headphones and upgrade if you don't think it's quite there yet. Creative's Audigy and newer X-Fi line have had nice things said about them.