Paying More than $2 for a Sound Card Is Not Worth It

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bigdogchris

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Tom's Hardware recently compared a $2,000 audio device to a $2 integrated codec, and a few others in between.

Tom's Hardware said:
a $2 Realtek integrated audio codec could not be reliably distinguished from the $2000 Benchmark DAC2 HGC in a four-device round-up.
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LINK
 
I absolutely fucking agree. Motherboard optical to a reasonably good optical/RCA DAC, then as short a RCA cable set between your DAC and Amplifier. Lots of amp DAC's are crap. I'd rather pick my DAC and use a short 4" run of cabling to my amp, and use the amp's direct passthrough mode, along with Equalizer APO in windows to set a proper peak EQ with bandwidth and Q settings.

I do this to pump 1000w into a 2.3 system and I'm very happy with SQ.
 
Bullshit.

I thought built-in realtek did an OK job until a few weeks ago, when I brought an OEM SB-Z. Onboard could barely drive a pair of 32ohm headphones, the bass has more depth, plus there is much less background noise. Yes high end audio does have deminishing returns, but you can get much better quality than onboard audio and Logitech speakers without spending a fortune.
 
Going to answer this from a headphone user's point of view. I despise my Asus Phoebus because of the driver situation and lack of features promised at launch. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that my Phoebus sounds a helluva lot clearer than my Realtek sound. When the drivers for the Phoebus were at their worse, I tried everything to get the Realtek to sound as good. It simply doesn't match up.

It has hiss and motherboard noise in it. The entire time it is on it has some annoying background hum. I have bought numerous cases and power supplies to try and get rid of it. I even tried a second motherboard. My Phoebus doesn't have these issues as long as I keep it in the lower slot on my motherboard. The onboard sound doesn't have the punch that the Phoebus does from a lack of power. The amp section really needs help. Now what I would like to try is to feed the digital out on it to an external headphone amp and see how well it sounds. If that sounds fine then that might be it's saving grace.

I don't possess golden ears or $1,000 headphones. I can tell the difference between good sound and alright sound. The last good motherboard onboard sound was Nvidia SoundStorm. That was simply the best thing I'd ever heard before and since in the computer world.
 
Arcygenical said:
I absolutely fucking agree. Motherboard optical to a reasonably good optical/RCA DAC, then as short a RCA cable set between your DAC and Amplifier. Lots of amp DAC's are crap. I'd rather pick my DAC and use a short 4" run of cabling to my amp, and use the amp's direct passthrough mode, along with Equalizer APO in windows to set a proper peak EQ with bandwidth and Q settings.

I do this to pump 1000w into a 2.3 system and I'm very happy with SQ.
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From a user on the Head-Fi forums, he suggested that it's probably better just to go optical out from an on-board sound to a DAC (and amp) instead since the audio will be processed by the DAC unit and not the Realtek on-board. And, pair it with a good pair of headphones and it'll just sound as good as something thtat'll cost more.

The problem here is reliability.

I've had two or three motherboards where the Realtek audio simply failed to produce audio, or would hiss or cut out audio after having the board for 6 months to one year. This may be due to the location where the audio chip is located on the board and how susceptible it is to interference or something else. Then, again, I've had one Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer card fail after a year of use with the card BSOD-ing on me after booting into Windows or just simply playing something in Foobar2000 or iTunes.
 
I very much so disagree.
Sometimes the cheapo realtek can sound fine, however quite a few times you can get one that's not insulated well enough or something so you get an awful hiss when one turns the volume up (like say for watching a movie)

Got a Xonar a few years back after a brief period of no soundcard, totally worth it.
 
Some onboard sound is fine with some setups. If you don't hear distortion or noise (hiss, hum, hard drive noises, static, etc.) then it's generally fine. Especially when driving very easy sources like amplifiers (T-amp, receiver, amplified speakers, etc.). Headphones are much harder to drive and not all will work with all onboard setups. And many times onboard does end up noisy. I bought a new external HDD recently and it added noise into my signal. I didn't bother diagnosing it much since I ended up buying a USB mixer (which I had wanted for other reasons anyway) which fixed the issue.

I've been saying for years that onboard is sometimes good enough, but some people just love to waste their money. And, worse, some people like to waste other people's money by giving crappy advice.

In any case, unless you know your stuff is difficult to drive or you need features onboard doesn't have, onboard is always worth at least trying before you buy better stuff. Worst case scenario is you wait another week to get better gear. Best case scenario is you find that onboard works well in your setup, saving yourself some money.
 
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When going optical there probably isn't a huge difference if any difference at all. Analog on the other hand is another story. I listen to motherboards with amplifiers and ones without all the time. Without they are all pretty much the same. Quality on boards that have it is definitely better.
 
There are a few things that bug me about the article.

According to the article, the Motherboard used is an Asus Rampage III Formula. It uses the Realtek ALC889 as a Codec/DAC. It's part of the overall "SupremeFX X-Fi 2" audio on that motherboard. Listing the price as "$2" seems silly, the equivalent of pricing a soundcard or external DAC based on the wholesale bulk prices of it's primary internal components instead of pricing them as whole products. The title is even more
tard.gif
because obviously the $2 wholesale bulk cost of the ALC889 chip has nothing to do with spending $2 on a soundcard.

Broad generalizations really don't help people much, and part of the problem itself is when all the plethora of different motherboard audio solutions get lumped into the same category and simply referred to as "onboard sound" regardless of the differences.

I just switched back from my X-Fi Titanium HD to my onboard Realtek Audio this morning for testing purposes, and no surprise really - it sounded like shit.

But my motherboard is using the ALC892 codec, which is actually quite common and far more common than the ALC889 that the motherboard in the article uses.

70734797.png


Look at the difference in SNR!

For people looking for an upgrade, it really comes down to evaluating the specifications of the individual components in question. I cringe at the idea that someone is going to read that article and end up going back to their ALC892 based onboard (which again is FAR more common than ALC889) thinking that it's somehow not trash.
 
Tom's actually did fairly good science here. Someone intimately familiar with blind testing methodology will probably find some flaws that call into question the conclusion, but probably not to too significant a degree.

Even if found to be grossly flawed, they're at least trying to do this objectively. The same can't be said for just about any other audio reviewer on the planet.

GotNoRice said:
Look at the difference in SNR!
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So? Measurable differences don't always correlate to perceptible ones.
 
If they are talking about quality of output from a single sound channel, that's one thing.
But on-board codecs are usually very shitty at mixing sound from multiple channels. Like a game with 64 sound channels (WoW or BF3/BF4). That's when sounds start to cut off randomly on a cheap-o codec and sound just fine on SB X-Fi.
 
ashmelev75 said:
If they are talking about quality of output from a single sound channel, that's one thing.
But on-board codecs are usually very shitty at mixing sound from multiple channels. Like a game with 64 sound channels (WoW or BF3/BF4). That's when sounds start to cut off randomly on a cheap-o codec and sound just fine on SB X-Fi.
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That, is actually a very good point, that I forgot about, since I hardly game these days.
 
Implementation details surrounding the DAC chip more often than not have more to do with sound quality than the DAC chip itself.

In this way, the Asus Rampage III Formula is indeed an outlier when it comes to motherboard audio, as its design offers more attention towards isolation and power circuitry than most other boards offer.

As for a more direct price comparison, Realtek deals with large volume customers so finding pricing details is difficult, but $2 for the ALC889 seems reasonable. ESS SABRE32 ES9018 pricing is easier to come by, but only for sample quantities. Samples cost around $50 per chip, but production orders would bring costs down significantly. So one would figure a more appropriate comparison would be $2 versus, say, $25-30 and not $2 versus $2000.

Now, granted, the DAC2 actually uses four ES9018s with two chips per channel running in balanced mono. (Although balanced audio was not tested, so I suppose that would be a "feature" in their comparison.) So now it is $2 versus $100-120?

Anyway, it's a bit of a silly comparison. But I would agree that many, if not most, audio enthusiasts likely spend more money on their DAC than they truly need to. Headphones and/or speakers always come first, and the rest is should simply be a cost factored into those purchases.
 
Yes, if we rule out bad MBO implementations of Realtek (which are most of them) and start from a dedicated sound card, there is no gain in sound quality. Of course, some may not have the power to drive certain headphones, but disregarding that, they are all transparent. Just as every objective audio test has proven. I fondly remember one of those that compared a cheap stereo to a tens of thousands of $ expensive amp and no one was able to hear a difference.

I LOLed at the €8000 power conditioner and cables.
 
Meeho said:
Yes, if we rule out bad MBO implementations of Realtek (which are most of them) and start from a dedicated sound card, there is no gain in sound quality. Of course, some may not have the power to drive certain headphones, but disregarding that, they are all transparent. Just as every objective audio test has proven. I fondly remember one of those that compared a cheap stereo to a tens of thousands of $ expensive amp and no one was able to hear a difference.
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You might be thinking of one of the same exact examples I was: http://webpages.charter.net/fryguy/Amp_Sound.pdf

Another good link: "The Ten Biggest Lies In Audio" (www.theaudiocritic.com)

Not all of the things above really apply to computers because there is so much circuitry inside a computer that noise often occurs, and also audio circuits are often very much half-assed. Stuff like what I just linked doesn't claim that any piece of audio equipment sounds the same, but rather can sound the same when designed by competent engineers. Which you will find to be the case in any name brand home audio amplifier/receiver. Buy some cheap no-name crap and of course you may get an amp that is high in distortion, poor in SNR, is unstable (perhaps oscillates), or any of many other issues. Which is exactly what you get with many implementations of onboard sound - but not all of them. My assertion is that if your electronics are really messing up your sound, you're going to hear it. It should be obvious (and I mean obvious, not 'make stuff up' as people often do). It's speakers that might not be immediately obvious, since it's normal for the frequency response (and impedance and other stuff) curve to vary significantly over the audio frequency range in a speaker, but not generally in the amp. So while it's hard if not impossible to tell if speakers are flat, it's much easier to tell when your electronics are crap.

As for SNR, I of course like better SNRs, but I will say that if you can't actually hear the noise, it doesn't really matter. Though some relatively high-end audio brands, such as NAD, have been known to have poor SNR on some products. The T761 I have in my bedroom has a ton of hiss with my headphones, as did the T753 I used to own. Fortunately I don't use the T761 with headphones; I drive them right from my mixer (A&H Zed-10). I don't hear the T761's hiss on my desktop speakers, but I could hear a slight amount of hiss on the speakers I used to have on the T753 when the audio level was low.

As a side-note, I will say that it's often easy to identify the BSers when it comes to audio. They always tell you that their minor upgrade in electronics resulted in a "night and day" difference in sound quality.
 
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there was also a youtube vid on something similar. however, the presenters fail to convince me that a sound card is a waste of money.

Even with my little experience with sounds cards. comparing Asus Phoebus, Sound Blaster Z and onboard has significant differences even through my crap logitechs. Phoebus has better overall sound quality than the SBZ and both are far better than onboard.

However, if i was to truly an avid audiophile using my pc as the transport i would use optical from the motherboard to an external DAC (like the Meridian) to a power headphone amp (no knowledge of which is a great amp) to a pair of Sen HD800 or Bey S1?. Since i have never seen any Sound card DACs utilise high end chips.
 
blinx said:
HiFi isn't about hard data. It's pretty much the most subjective hobby I've ever been into.
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Ahaha, right, escape to esoteric it is. I've got this homeopathic water to sell...

Anyway, it matters not if it is subjective or not. It's not about if something sounds different to you or me, it is that you can't hear a difference. You only think you do and would fail instantly in a DBT test.
 
I disagree also. When I got my first X-Fi I was like Whoa, coming from onboard. Upgrading to my STX wasn't noticable from the X-Fi rxcept for some 3d sounds in games, but I will always use a sound card regardless. Subjective tests like this are difficult. Same way some people prefer a song from youtube with all that low end end extra bass compared to the flac version of the same song.
 
man... who knows... I don't want to get too mixed up in this

I have a bunch of dac's /sound cards and interfaces around here... it can be pretty subjective.

It can also be synergy.. I have two external usb sound devices hooked up to my Pioneer SX-3600 w/ NHT SuperZero speakers and a polk PSW10 subwoofer.

the first usb device is a DAC FiiO E07K/E09K absolutely sounds like ass... like I though my SX-3600 was broken..

however i have the FiiO hooked up to my Kenwood KR-V106R w/ Monitor Audio Silver S1 speakers and it sounds fantastic

i also have my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 hooked up to the Pioneer SX-3600 and it sounds great with the scarlett.

such a subjective hobby... so many complex interactions between all the hardware in the chain... i think it is hard to make definitive claims one way or the other personally.


I was not at all happy with the onboard audio (with headphones) but some people claim blah blah sounds the same ..my motherboard is a Z87X-UD3H which has Realtek ALC898

I have a Pioneer VSX-D1S w/ DCM Timeframe TF250 hooked up to the via optical out on my motherboard with a little $12 DAC

like so

http://www.amazon.com/Conversions-T..._3?ie=UTF8&qid=1393385354&sr=8-3&keywords=dac

sound quite nice indeed.


spend what you want / can afford to find something that sounds good (or a bunch of stuff in my case :rolleyes:) and be happy.
 
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I feel sorry for them if they couldnt tell the difference.
I've played with quite a few soundcards and external DACs and can tell the difference between them, most of them easily.
I now use 2 high end external DACs, one for stereo, the other for surround.
They both use the same DAC chip but in slightly different ways and they sound different.
I've also experimented a lot with cables and eventually took the plunge to make my own silver open dielectric interconnect cables.
They made a marked difference in detail retrieval, so much so, my brother made some as well.

If those guys couldnt tell the difference with the kit they used, either something was wrong with their setup or the people they selected to audition them just werent able to tell the difference.
Not everyone appreciates hifi.

I have to question their method of connecting the headphones through long wires with more connections.
These will reduce detail, especially from the higher end kit.
Exposing more detail is what higher end DACs are all about.
 
Very interesting article, I think it was generally well done other than the $ to $ comparison.

A lot of you have good points, but many of you are forgetting that you're upgrading from older Realtek parts to dedicated DACs, and as the article mentioned, the newer Realtek codecs are much better.

Coincidentally, I own the Xonar STX and my new Z87 MPower Max features Realtek ALC1150 with built-in headphone amp and gain settings. I also have access to a DAC2 and a pair of HD800s. I've never actually used the Realtek but I will give it a spin for the next few days for impressions. I've also never heard the HD800 on the Xonar STX. I will report back :)
 
Meeho said:
Ahaha, right, escape to esoteric it is. I've got this homeopathic water to sell...

Anyway, it matters not if it is subjective or not. It's not about if something sounds different to you or me, it is that you can't hear a difference. You only think you do and would fail instantly in a DBT test.
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Here you go:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA
If you can't here a difference, you are deaf. My nearly 10 year old x-fi card beats the crap out of onboard sound for the only thing that matters to me, gaming, in particular positional sound with headphones.
 
Diablode said:
Here you go:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA
If you can't here a difference, you are deaf. My nearly 10 year old x-fi card beats the crap out of onboard sound for the only thing that matters to me, gaming, in particular positional sound with headphones.
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That has absolutely nothing to do with stereo sound quality or DACs.


Nenu said:
I feel sorry for them if they couldnt tell the difference.

I've also experimented a lot with cables and eventually took the plunge to make my own silver open dielectric interconnect cables.
They made a marked difference in detail retrieval, so much so, my brother made some as well.
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:rolleyes:
 
I dont care to give you scientific explanations, I did my own testing, drew my own conclusions and made my own cables and it worked out very well.
If I was to say I did somethying else then I wouldnt be telling the truth.
Perhaps you prefer that or would rather not hear peoples experience :rolleyes:

If you cant tell the difference, dont blame me.
I agree that there is plenty of snake oil out there and I'm not partial to it either.
But not everyone can perceive really fine detail and even less seem to care even when they can hear it.
It took me a long time to work my way up to the equipment I have now because I wasnt sure if it was worth spending the money.
But I am satisfied with what I have now and dont want to change any of it, every part made a very appreciable difference to me.

I'm not selling anything other than my experience.
Some things may be myth, but not what I have done.

Perhaps this isnt the topic for you.
Dont spoil it for those that can appreciate it.
 
No, you think you hear a difference, but the actual sound you hear is the same. You, as everyone else, would fail in a blind test. But if it makes you feel better about spending time and/or money, good for you. In any case, I don't see why you would pass on a chance to win million dollars with your golden ears.
 
I've listened to my new audio rig (in sig) through my mobo's optical and my HT Omega Striker's optical and coaxial. I think the best sound is when I use the Striker's coaxial. Maybe it's all in my head and ears, but since my head and ears are all that matter to me, I'm fine with it. ;)
 
Meeho said:
No, you think you hear a difference, but the actual sound you hear is the same. You, as everyone else, would fail in a blind test. But if it makes you feel better about spending time and/or money, good for you. In any case, I don't see why you would pass on a chance to win million dollars with your golden ears.
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If you cant tell much difference, then its not me thats missing out.
Unfortunate for you I'm afraid.
Its a hobby I greatly enjoy because of what I can hear.
It wouldnt be much fun otherwise would it.
 
Meeho said:
No, you think you hear a difference, but the actual sound you hear is the same. You, as everyone else, would fail in a blind test. But if it makes you feel better about spending time and/or money, good for you. In any case, I don't see why you would pass on a chance to win million dollars with your golden ears.
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Do what I did and put the "I believe" "I feel" "I'm different because I can hear..." anti-science golden ears on ignore. Discussion is all well and good, but when it can be proven (and I mean absolutely proven beyond any doubt whatsoever) that none of us can hear every detail perfectly every listen and that we all make mistakes in identifying differences and similarities between clips, and it cannot be proven that they are right, that's not a discussion. This is the audio equivalent of people who insisted that the world was flat or that the Earth was the center of the universe, even when presented with evidence to the contrary that far exceeds the evidence supporting their incorrect belief.

There is nothing to be gained from discussing audio with people like Nenu. They're only interested in telling you what they think they hear, even when you're familiar with the exact phenomena that cause that problem. They are special beings that have hearing beyond the capabilities of the rest of us Plebs, and they won't let science get in the way of their amazing ears. They can hear what can't be measured. We might as well throw away our spectrum analyzers and hire people like Nenu for all audio-related jobs. It'll even save time because they don't need to waste their time doing scientific things like double-blind ABX tests. Or level matching. Or, really, anything else whatsoever.
 
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Tyler-Durden said:
I've listened to my new audio rig (in sig) through my mobo's optical and my HT Omega Striker's optical and coaxial. I think the best sound is when I use the Striker's coaxial. Maybe it's all in my head and ears, but since my head and ears are all that matter to me, I'm fine with it. ;)
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If you think there's any difference between the optical and coaxial, you can be 100% sure (and I don't mean 99.97%, either, by the way) that your hearing is not to be trusted. They are the same thing. The same bits are sent over them. The DAC will do the same thing with them.

Also, if you're human, you can be 100% sure (and I don't mean 99.97%, either, by the way) that your hearing is not to be trusted.

Why do you all feel you benefit from denying the reality of our perception of audio? Why is it always "I hear ___ so I disregard science that explains why I hear ___"? I don't have to do that to be happy with my audio gear. And I'm picky about audio gear (in ways that are far more economical than some of you).
 
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dandragonrage said:
Do what I did and put the "I believe" "I feel" "I'm different because I can hear..." anti-science golden ears on ignore. Discussion is all well and good, but when it can be proven (and I mean absolutely proven beyond any doubt whatsoever) that none of us can hear every detail perfectly every listen and that we all make mistakes in identifying differences and similarities between clips, and it cannot be proven that they are right, that's not a discussion. This is the audio equivalent of people who insisted that the world was flat or that the Earth was the center of the universe, even when presented with evidence to the contrary that far exceeds the evidence supporting their incorrect belief.

There is nothing to be gained from discussing audio with people like Nenu. They're only interested in telling you what they think they hear, even when you're familiar with the exact phenomena that cause that problem. They are special beings that have hearing beyond the capabilities of the rest of us Plebs, and they won't let science get in the way of their amazing ears. They can hear what can't be measured. We might as well throw away our spectrum analyzers and hire people like Nenu for all audio-related jobs. It'll even save time because they don't need to waste their time doing scientific things like double-blind ABX tests. Or level matching. Or, really, anything else whatsoever.
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Not at all.
I can hear something you cant yet its you beating at my door.
If you've already tested your hearing with different equipment and think its bs, fair enough, accept its not for you.
What you are doing now is trolling me because I have something you cant understand.

Notice that I can accept you might not be able to hear it or dont care enough for it to matter.
Yet you wont accept that I can and do care.

I'm not trying to sell anything, there is no other motive than telling the truth.
Sorry if you cant accept that, but my stance cannot possibly change unless I start lieing.
 
dandragonrage said:
If you think there's any difference between the optical and coaxial, you can be 100% sure (and I don't mean 99.97%, either, by the way) that your hearing is not to be trusted. They are the same thing. The same bits are sent over them. The DAC will do the same thing with them.

Also, if you're human, you can be 100% sure (and I don't mean 99.97%, either, by the way) that your hearing is not to be trusted.

Why do you all feel you benefit from denying the reality of our perception of audio? I don't have to do that to be happy with my audio gear. And I'm picky about audio gear (in ways that are far more economical than some of you).
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As I explicitly wrote in my post...

Tyler-Durden said:
I've listened to my new audio rig (in sig) through my mobo's optical and my HT Omega Striker's optical and coaxial. I think the best sound is when I use the Striker's coaxial. Maybe it's all in my head and ears, but since my head and ears are all that matter to me, I'm fine with it. ;)
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Reading is fundamental.
 
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