Any difference between on-board and soundcard when using external DAC?

[Val]

I tried to find an answer to this question a while ago. I dont think i did. So just in case i bought Auzentech Meridian soundcard.

When connecting my speakers to Meridian's analog outputs the sound quality was rubbish, as expected. However, what interested me more was the difference between on-board audio and meridian, as well as difference between "as is" playback and through bit-perfect encoding setup.

I couldnt hear any difference between normal playback and bit-perfect setup. To my ears the quality was also identical to a high-end CD player. So i uninstalled all the bit-perfect software and closed that question.

However, i was more intrigued when testing the difference between on-board audio and my soundcard. And i think there is a difference. Although i couldnt really tell if it was a genuine quality difference, or that they just sounded a little differently, say like coax and optical outputs sound a tiny bit differently, but neither is better, just depends what you like more.

So i left it at that, a bit confused. Decided to use my soundcard for output. But without having any answer to this puzzle.



Now im building my next computer and im a bit puzzled with this question again... Should i get a dedicated soundcar or not? And if yes, then which one? All high-end cards focus on "quality" on-board DACs, which im really not interested in...... Hmmmmm

 

[The_Engineer]

Here's the way i see it.
You know that the sound coming to your ears is a function of a few things
a Source Quality
b DAC Quality
c Power quality provided to the DAC
d EMI (mostly a factor after the DAC, could probably be lumped in with c)
e what you are listening on.
f how discerning your ear actually is

maybe could be broken down a bit more but thats roughly the way i see it. Anyhow, The top questions to answer are
1. what will you be listening on?
2. what will you be listening to?
3. what does your experience tell you about how you listen to your audio
(caring and making the output higher quality doesn't necessarily make it sound better if you can't hear the difference!)

I'm going to assume you're not planning on using any sort of Digital audio output which eliminates most of these factors in the realm of PC's

From there its just a quetion of the enginerring that went into everything that you bought. Some would argue that Onboard sound from the proper setup is more than sufficient for most uses. There have even been motherboards with tube amplifiers built into them! (see: aopen AX4 tube http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/motherboard/ax4ge_tube-g/)

Let us know what you're hooking up and what you like to listen to and I think we can answer this a bit better.

 

[miskari]

if you are going to be running a speaker setup take a look into getting a receiver and plugging that up to your optical out, FWIR that is a really big step up from most PC speakers. additionally you can hook up your headphones to the phone out of the receiver, they aren't all that amazing but they do the job well (some better than others).

 

[Surly73]

If just running stereo, probably not.

Different cards/chipsets will have different abilities in terms of DTS-Live or DD-Live, however, which may affect gaming.

 

[The_Engineer]

if you are going to be running a speaker setup take a look into getting a receiver and plugging that up to your optical out, FWIR that is a really big step up from most PC speakers. additionally you can hook up your headphones to the phone out of the receiver, they aren't all that amazing but they do the job well (some better than others).

I prefer this route myself.

 

[Trombe]

It pretty much amounts to whether you want to add any DSP effects (CMSS-3D, Crystallizer, EAX, Dolby Headphone, whatever else is out there) through the digital out. If not, you'll be fine just using the mobo output.

 

[Val]

Guys, my audio setup is in my signature

It pretty much amounts to whether you want to add any DSP effects (CMSS-3D, Crystallizer, EAX, Dolby Headphone, whatever else is out there) through the digital out. If not, you'll be fine just using the mobo output.

Makes sense, but did you do any testing to confirm this?