Soundcard, DAC/Amp.. or both...

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Dark Prodigy

Jawbreaker
Joined
Mar 10, 2006
Messages
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I like to listen to music on my main rig ... I like playing games on my main rig and I mostly use headphones.

Soundcards are good for games...DAC's are good for music... how about about a single solution for both. Combine a decent EAX soundcard and a nice DAC/Amp? Or will a DAC/Amp make games come alive too?

Will be picking THIS up soon quite possibly. I guess I just need to know if this will be good for games too. Because if it is... this beats a soundcard IMO.

I have my AKG 701's already and now just need a near-audiophile type quality feeding them.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
I like to listen to music on my main rig ... I like playing games on my main rig and I mostly use headphones.

Soundcards are good for games...DAC's are good for music... how about about a single solution for both. Combine a decent EAX soundcard and a nice DAC/Amp? Or will a DAC/Amp make games come alive too?
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It depends on what games you play. You need to see if any of them actually use EAX/OpenAL. If not, you can stick with your onboard for digital out and go for an external DAC/Amp or receiver (see if you onboard audio chipset supports Dolby Headphone, I've heard thats great for games).
Will be picking THIS up soon quite possibly. I guess I just need to know if this will be good for games too. Because if it is... this beats a soundcard IMO.

I have my AKG 701's already and now just need a near-audiophile type quality feeding them.
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Since you're looking at the DacMagic I guess its safe to assume you have money to spend, but exactly is your budget? Are you just looking for something for your headphones, or do you intend to use speakers at all?
 
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King of Heroes said:
Since you're looking at the DacMagic I guess its safe to assume you have money to spend, but exactly is your budget? Are you just looking for something for your headphones, or do you intend to use speakers at all?
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Money to spend? lol Man I wish it were that easy. I have to pick an item to purchase, then budget for months to get exactly that item. I guess its because I'm not so rich that I can afford to buy cheap shit. I'd rather go without, then save up to get what I want that will last.

However, the verdict is still out on a set of external speakers. I was looking at some Orbs™ but decided to go for the 701's first. So its safe to say I will be using headphones for a while, but do want the option for either.
 
Check out the computer audio section of head-fi. I'd recommend looking at either the Asus Essence STX or the Auzentech Forte. Both were designed with headphone amps on-board and sound great for the money. (The Forte can use EAX, the Essence has an EAX emulator, for what it's worth)
 
Don't get an external DAC - ever. You can either just start off with a good sound card, or you can get a decent sound card and see if it's good enough and order an amplifier if necessary. An amplifier won't improve sound quality. It will (actually, it MAY) only increase headroom which means you'll be able to go louder.
 
Indeed. EVER. They are a waste of money. Always use a DAC that's integrated into something - sound card, receiver, whatever. But a separate DAC is never, ever worth it.
 
Well, unless you have digital/PCM hearing, then you can't listen to music from your computer without a DAC somewhere ;)
 
dandragonrage said:
Indeed. EVER. They are a waste of money. Always use a DAC that's integrated into something - sound card, receiver, whatever. But a separate DAC is never, ever worth it.
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What makes you say this? A lot of people on Head-Fi would seem to disagree with you there. I've never owned a standalone DAC but I'm still curious being interested in buying a DAC/amp combo in the near future.
 
Cabbs said:
What makes you say this? A lot of people on Head-Fi would seem to disagree with you there. I've never owned a standalone DAC but I'm still curious being interested in buying a DAC/amp combo in the near future.
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People on Head-fi are crazy. What makes me say it? The fact that there has NEVER been a public double blind ABX test of amplifiers/DACs that has shown that anyone can tell a difference. We're talking about distortion around .01% here. NOBODY can hear that. Head-fi people are the same sort of people that would buy expensive cables and stuff for speakers. (And, in fact, they do that for their cans.) And not only are they claiming they can hear a difference, but most of them go so far to call certain amplifiers or DACs a "night and day difference." That's just... insulting.

There is NO reason to buy a standalone DAC. Ever.
 
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I see your point. One last question before I derail this topic too much: have you ever done a comparison between a standalone DAC and a DAC integrated somewhere else?
 
Cabbs said:
I see your point. One last question before I derail this topic too much: have you ever done a comparison between a standalone DAC and a DAC integrated somewhere else?
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Not an external but I have compared using analog audio and digital audio to my receiver from my onboard sound and I heard no difference. Though I have had several motherboards where using the onboard analog sound resulted in a lot of noise (during HDD seek and such) leaking through but I do not get that crap on my current setup, fortunately.

I'm actually using analog out from my onboard sound now because I use a mixer on my desk with my desktop and PSP hooked up. My laptop used to be hooked up to it as well but I sold it.
 
I went from an onboard realtek soundcard to a musiland monitor 02 with full asio support and I can tell you there is a very real difference. Wiith nothing playing there is a constant hiss from onboard audio, with the musiland there is just dead silence, even when cranking the volume on the insanely powerful headphone amp on my nakamichi way up. Granted the realtek is inferior to a dedicated sound card but just going from wdm to asio makes a huge difference. I don't like listening to music out of a pc now unless it is handled by asio drivers. I would also like to say I agree that the ppl at headfi are nuts I don't let the placebo effect influence my listening. But play the same track through wdm and then asio if you get a chance and you will see what I mean.


By the way all headphone / line outs are amplified to some extent the question is how powerful and of what quality is the amp. Going from a lousy amp to a good one on certain headphones will also make a clear difference, especially
with bass reproduction.
 
dandragonrage said:
Not an external but I have compared using analog audio and digital audio to my receiver from my onboard sound and I heard no difference. Though I have had several motherboards where using the onboard analog sound resulted in a lot of noise (during HDD seek and such) leaking through but I do not get that crap on my current setup, fortunately.

I'm actually using analog out from my onboard sound now because I use a mixer on my desk with my desktop and PSP hooked up. My laptop used to be hooked up to it as well but I sold it.
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Qft. With my iems plugged in on my work pc I could clearly hear the awful static turn into a worse hiss simply by moving the mouse with nothing else coming through.
 
Onboard digital out to a receiver/amp, never heard any better from a dedicated sound card.
 
SlipperyPete said:
I went from an onboard realtek soundcard to a musiland monitor 02 with full asio support and I can tell you there is a very real difference. Wiith nothing playing there is a constant hiss from onboard audio, with the musiland there is just dead silence, even when cranking the volume on the insanely powerful headphone amp on my nakamichi way up. Granted the realtek is inferior to a dedicated sound card but just going from wdm to asio makes a huge difference. I
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It's not about Realtek or not. I use HD555s (not the best cans, I know) and a NAD T761 with Onix Reference 1 speakers. I don't have a hiss problem in either path. It's not Realtek that would cause hiss... it's poor PCB design and possibly poor op amps. Some motherboards are bad at this and some aren't. Some sound cards are bad at it and some are not.

SNR becomes a bigger issue as you use more sensitive speakers because it takes less voltage/power to drive them to a given sound level, so the small level of hiss will go a longer way in being turned into sound waves. IEMs are going to be the worst and I do not use those.

For anyone curious (probably nobody), I'm using a Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer. I drive the cans off of the mixer.
 
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43st said:
Check out the computer audio section of head-fi. I'd recommend looking at either the Asus Essence STX or the Auzentech Forte. Both were designed with headphone amps on-board and sound great for the money. (The Forte can use EAX, the Essence has an EAX emulator, for what it's worth)
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I'll look more into this. However, I do not have a 1x pci-e slot available but I do have another 4x pci-e slot. I've always wondered if I could run a 1x in a 4x slot.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
I'll look more into this. However, I do not have a 1x pci-e slot available but I do have another 4x pci-e slot. I've always wondered if I could run a 1x in a 4x slot.
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You can.

Dark Prodigy said:
However, the verdict is still out on a set of external speakers. I was looking at some Orbs™ but decided to go for the 701's first. So its safe to say I will be using headphones for a while, but do want the option for either.
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I would seriously suggest getting a receiver then (if you have the space), as that leaves open the option of getting some nice passive speakers later down the road. I think its a better long-term investment and you can just use your onboard digital out to hook it up. Many receivers also have Dolby Headphone for the headphone out as well (assuming your onboard doesn't already have it).
 
A high end receiver is the ultimate one-piece solution. High end DACs that would make the outdated chips on stand-alone DACs seem laughable, and the higher end receivers have headphone amps that make the "diy" standalone units you see on ebay pretty laughable too.
 
King of Heroes said:
I would seriously suggest getting a receiver then (if you have the space), as that leaves open the option of getting some nice passive speakers later down the road. I think its a better long-term investment and you can just use your onboard digital out to hook it up. Many receivers also have Dolby Headphone for the headphone out as well (assuming your onboard doesn't already have it).
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Yes a high end receiver would be nice, however it would be very impractical sitting on my desk or anywhere near it. A nice >small< and streamlined audiophile type solution is what I'm looking for. I know that a DAC/Amp would work and with one I would enjoy my music immensely while working at my desk, games are my only question with it.

That's why I'm not opposed to buying a small EAX capable soundcard and having that very signal feed a DAC/Amp. Wondering if anyone has tried it...
 
Your mobo probably has an spdif out which you could use to feed a dac. Or you could use usb. If gaming features are what you want you could buy an xfi but I don't know if the gaming features work through digital output.

Who remembers the good ol days of aureal a3d? I used to get excited about gaming audio.
 
Your mobo probably has an spdif out which you could use to feed a dac. Or you could use usb. If gaming features are what you want you could buy an xfi but I don't know if the gaming features work through digital output.

Who remembers the good ol days of aureal a3d? I used to get excited about gaming audio.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
That's why I'm not opposed to buying a small EAX capable soundcard and having that very signal feed a DAC/Amp. Wondering if anyone has tried it...
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Thats the setup I'm using right now. I have an X-Fi Titanium feeding a Zero DAC+Headamp over optical (I got the X-Fi on sale, and I have a few games that use EAX/OpenAL). If you have games that use EAX/OpenAL then one solution would be the Auzentech X-Fi Forte:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829156010

Its an X-Fi (therefore it supports EAX 5.0 and OpenAL) and it has a built-in headphone amp.
 
hmmm.. nice suggestion. Its looking like I'll combine the two for some excelent musical/gaming sound.


BTW, besides gaming, I listen to alot of neo-soul, 70's rock Hendrix, Zep..etc Black Crowes (modern day 70's sound) also groups like Adema, Bush, Soundgarden...
 
dandragonrage said:
I heard no difference. .
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so you heard no difference and hence the hundreds of stand alone DACs are all worthless?
come on, maybe my hearing isn't the best but i can easily pick out the differences between different DACs.
The OPs main intention is to listen to music. If this music is lossless i strongly recommend looking for an external DAC. That way the digital to analogue conversion wouldn't happen in the noisy (EMF) inside of the PC.
 
shadowlord said:
so you heard no difference and hence the hundreds of stand alone DACs are all worthless?
come on, maybe my hearing isn't the best but i can easily pick out the differences between different DACs.
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Bullshit. We're talking distortion figures far below 1%. Like 0.00x%. You can NOT pick out the differences with ABX. Your use of the word "easily" took you from "very unlikely" to "completely untrustworthy." Go back to Head-Fi.
 
dandragonrage said:
Bullshit. We're talking distortion figures far below 1%. Like 0.00x%. You can NOT pick out the differences with ABX. Your use of the word "easily" took you from "very unlikely" to "completely untrustworthy." Go back to Head-Fi.
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Distortion isn't everything. I haven't ABX'd my DAC's but I have compared them volume matched and I heard differences. They use different output stages, but different stand alone DACs also use different output stages. I know you're going to say prove it by ABX'ing, but I won't so you'll just have to accept my opinion :p I also accept your opinion that it's not worth it to you, but you won't see me calling your opinion bullshit and calling you completely untrustworthy. That's just not nice ;)

Have you personally tried any stand alone DACs or is your assertion that stand alone DACs are not worth it solely on your experience with your sound card out vs your receiver? There are significant differences in DAC chips even between the top of the line model and budget receiver models in the design of the DACs, even of chips made within the same Company.
 
Let me ask you this: What, if not distortion, is causing a difference that you can hear without the unbiased scrutiny that ABX affords you? And why, if these chips sound so different, has no public ABX setup ever shown anyone that can distinguish between different audio products e.g. receivers? They use different DACs just like your standalones can.

Why am I mean with this opinion? Because you are going to convince people to spend money on gear that they don't need to and, frankly, will not improve their audio over cheaper and simpler alternatives.
 
There are a couple different factors involved, but why should I even bother when you're just going to say it's not audible and that I need to ABX to prove to you that I hear what I claim to hear (nothing wrong with you saying that actually, I just don't feel the need to go through a bunch of work doing a proper double blind ABX just to post something on the internet).

What public ABX trials are you referring to? If you're speaking solely of receivers, you can't claim that the DAC has no difference as you are not comparing like to like. You're comparing an integrated DAC + Amp vs a standalone DAC. Has there been an ABX trial using only the DAC as a variable?

I'm not out to convince anyone to buy anything. They're welcome to give things a listening to and form their own opinions.


As a side note, I find it funny that I'm getting the whole "prove it" attitude, as DAC's actually measure differently. We're not even talking about cables here.....(which I don't believe in, for what it's worth)
 
dandragonrage said:
Bullshit. We're talking distortion figures far below 1%. Like 0.00x%. You can NOT pick out the differences with ABX. Your use of the word "easily" took you from "very unlikely" to "completely untrustworthy." Go back to Head-Fi.
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There is a big huge difference adding a dac. It changes the sound signature and PERCEPTIBLY cleans up the background noise. Makes the backdrop blacker.

So the difference is like seeing in bright sunshine with glare from a distance and you miss all kind of detail vs a nice, sunny day close up which is just right for seeing all the details.

You do not need to spend a tone of money either. Any entry level Denon receiver would be great plugged into any optical output of a pc. Analogue outputs, like a hissy ass laptop or an onboard headphone out, suck. Optical is just 0100100101 and how the external dac processes them gives you cleaner sound than you would otherwise have.

A good soundcard with a decent headphone amp and some easy to drive headphones like the AD700s would be the most cost effective way to get great sound on a budget too. The analogue out on most of those cards is good enough to add an amp to for more power hungry headphones or speakers. However, a receiver is a dac, headphone and speaker amp all rolled into one. Hence my first suggestion. Get a decent receiver, use the optical out and get it on!
 
Most receivers don't have a very good headphone amp, most commonly it's some form of an opamp circuit like the cmoy. Not bad, but not great if you have a difficult to drive headphone.
 
Neb said:
Most receivers don't have a very good headphone amp, most commonly it's some form of an opamp circuit like the cmoy. Not bad, but not great if you have a difficult to drive headphone.
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Yeah true. Do not try to drive a Sennheiser 650. If you go receiver, get something like an Audiotechnica AD700, 900, Beyer 880 32ohm. or maybe an Ultrasone.
 
jakeshields said:
Altering the sound signature huh. Sounds like something achievable with an EQ.
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Way beyond an EQ. There is a difference. Measurements do not tell the whole story and you would know that if you actually did a test. If you really think onboard sound is the same as optical out to a decent dac/amp.....You have issues that I can't help you with.

Now I won't spend more than $400 on such gear because I can't hear much of a difference after that.
 
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thetruth said:
Way beyond an EQ. There is a difference. Measurements do not tell the whole story and you would know that if you actually did a test. If you really think onboard sound is the same as optical out to a decent dac/amp.....You have issues that I can't help you with.

Now I won't spend more than $400 on such gear because I can't hear much of a difference after that.
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Sure, let's play your game. If you believe your speakers are as good as Dynaudio Sapphires's, you have issues that I can't help you with.
 
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