Are notebook/computer internal DACs any good? Any test/review done?

[Biagiod]

Hi all

I have a secondary desktop setup with my Lenovo Yoga 920 feeding via analog 3.5mm a pair of 2+1 active speakers. I listen to it whenever I work (a number of hours..)
I was wondering HOW the internal DAC actually performs.. Considering to get an external DAC obviously.

I tried a search on the forum but could not find anything... is there any test/review done on internal notebook DACs? Are they just horrible or plain vanilla? Mine is a Realtek set at 24 bit 48Khz exit

Thanks for any leads

Marco

 

[dedobot]

The DAC chip it self is not a problem, the implementation is the trick. Laptop is extremely complicated device with tons of subsystems in small form factor where good/excellent DAC implementation is near to impossible.

 

[staticV3]

is there any test/review done on internal notebook DACs?

We have some tests of MacBooks:

我们到底在干嘛？-从AK小尾巴说开去 - L7Audiolab

便携设备 前两天我测了Astell&Kern PEE51，更早的时候我还测了学林大尾巴，在输出功率上也做了实测。这两个测量之后，我其实有点恍惚……我一时间不知道说什么。当初Sony的CD随身听几十mw的输出能力似乎是被各路英豪们怼的生活无法自理？现在这些设备怎么还是有这样子的？

www.l7audiolab.com

Measurements of Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max (2021) - L7Audiolab

台式设备 在2021年MacBookPro发布的时候，专门说了一下新款MBP的耳机插孔。当然，本站很有兴趣测量一下苹果“到底提供了怎样的耳机插孔”……可惜本站很穷……买不起…… T__T但是！穷人也能交到有钱朋友的对不对！于是一个网友直接定了一台给我……

www.l7audiolab.com

Apple 14" MacBook Pro, 애플 신형 맥북 프로 헤드폰 단자 측정 리뷰 - 영디비

신형 맥북 프로는 고임피던스 헤드폰 사용이 가능하다고 하는데, 얼마나 좋아졌을까요? 600Ohm의 고임피던스 헤드폰인 베이어다이나믹 T1으로 테스트를 해봤습니다. 그런데 고임피던스의 기준이 높아서 왠만한 헤드폰...

www.0db.co.kr

 

[threni]

We have some tests of MacBooks:

我们到底在干嘛？-从AK小尾巴说开去 - L7Audiolab

便携设备 前两天我测了Astell&Kern PEE51，更早的时候我还测了学林大尾巴，在输出功率上也做了实测。这两个测量之后，我其实有点恍惚……我一时间不知道说什么。当初Sony的CD随身听几十mw的输出能力似乎是被各路英豪们怼的生活无法自理？现在这些设备怎么还是有这样子的？

www.l7audiolab.com

Measurements of Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max (2021) - L7Audiolab

台式设备 在2021年MacBookPro发布的时候，专门说了一下新款MBP的耳机插孔。当然，本站很有兴趣测量一下苹果“到底提供了怎样的耳机插孔”……可惜本站很穷……买不起…… T__T但是！穷人也能交到有钱朋友的对不对！于是一个网友直接定了一台给我……

www.l7audiolab.com

Apple 14" MacBook Pro, 애플 신형 맥북 프로 헤드폰 단자 측정 리뷰 - 영디비

신형 맥북 프로는 고임피던스 헤드폰 사용이 가능하다고 하는데, 얼마나 좋아졌을까요? 600Ohm의 고임피던스 헤드폰인 베이어다이나믹 T1으로 테스트를 해봤습니다. 그런데 고임피던스의 기준이 높아서 왠만한 헤드폰...

www.0db.co.kr

We? Ahh - our sister site; EncryptedAudioScienceReview!

 

[antcollinet]

We? Ahh - our sister site; EncryptedAudioScienceReview!

https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=translate

Select website, and paste in the link.

 

[staticV3]

We? Ahh - our sister site; EncryptedAudioScienceReview!

Encrypted? Most American thing I've read in a while

 

[JSmith]

Amir tested some sound cards a while back;

EVGA NU Audio Pro Review (Internal Sound Card)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the EVGA NU Audio Pro 7.1 Surround DAC, headphone amplifier and ADC. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $300 on Amazon including free shipping. I like the slick coloring and logo: But I hate, hate, hate...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Review and Measurements of Sound Blaster Z Card

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Z PCI Express Gaming and Surround Audio interface card. It is on kind loan from a member. The Blaster Z costs US $100 on Amazon with prime shipping. The card is still in my machine so here is a stock picture of the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Review and Measurements of PiFi DAC+ Pi Sound Card

This is a review and detailed measurements of itead's PiFi DAC+ Version 2 Raspberry Pi sound card (DAC). It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $40 but company has it on sale for US $36.50. It competes with the HifiBerry DAC+ whose pro version I recently...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Review and Measurements of Asus STX II PCI Sound Card

This is a review and detailed measurements of Asus STX II PCI Express sound card. It is on kind loan from a member and retails for USD $219 on Amazon including Prime shipping. Full list price is $299. This is a medium sized PC card which oddly requires external power. You can see it here...

www.audiosciencereview.com

JSmith

 

[threni]

Encrypted? Most American thing I've read in a while
View attachment 434416

Not really we, is it?

Agree with you about Americans though.

 

[JSmith]

Select website, and paste in the link.

Chrome, MS Edge, Safari on macOS and iOS also detect and auto translate websites.


JSmith

 

[Leporello]

The DAC chip it self is not a problem, the implementation is the trick. Laptop is extremely complicated device with tons of subsystems in small form factor where good/excellent DAC implementation is near to impossible.

I wonder if this is actually true. The reason may not be technical but commercial: there simply is not enough demand for excellent dacs in laptops. Audiophiles are an exteremely tiny subset of potential laptop buyers.

 

[Count Arthur]

In Firefox, there's a button in the address bar:

It's not great with Chinese, but you can get the gist of it.

I've only seen a few measurements of PC and laptop on-board sound. They seem to range from poor, to fair, I don't think I've ever seen one that's really great.

 

[dedobot]

I wonder if this is actually true. The reason may not be technical but commercial: there simply is not enough demand for excellent dacs in laptops. Audiophiles are an exteremely tiny subset of potential laptop buyers.

The lack of commercial demand definitely is a factor but from pure technical standpoint standalone dac is a way more easy to be "perfect". Hell..even 3.5mm stereo jack is maybe the worst analog audio interface. Constrained form factor is unavoidable obstacle.

 

[Berwhale]

Tsk, you guys! Here's Amir's review (in English, non-encrypted) of a 'good' PC motherboard sound chip...

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Motherboard Audio Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the audio subsystem of my Gigabyte Z390 Z390 Aorus Master "gaming" motherboard. It was kindly built into my system by member @mkawa and is my everyday workhorse that runs all the measurements you see. It costs US $290 including Prime shipping from...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Count Arthur]

Tsk, you guys! Here's Amir's review (in English, non-encrypted) of a 'good' PC motherboard sound chip...

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Motherboard Audio Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the audio subsystem of my Gigabyte Z390 Z390 Aorus Master "gaming" motherboard. It was kindly built into my system by member @mkawa and is my everyday workhorse that runs all the measurements you see. It costs US $290 including Prime shipping from...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Even the performance of that "good" motherboard, is easily bested by some cheap dongles.

Also, there are hundreds of motherboards available at any one time and their performance seems to be all over the place, and a higher price doesn't seem to be any guarantee that sound section will be good. Unless you can find a measurement of the specific make and model you have, it's pot luck.

If you try it, and it sounds OK to you, then I guess it's good enough.

 

[Berwhale]

Even the performance of that "good" motherboard, is easily bested by some cheap dongles.

Also, there are hundreds of motherboards available at any one time and their performance seems to be all over the place, and a higher price doesn't seem to be any guarantee that sound section will be good. Unless you can find a measurement of the specific make and model you have, it's pot luck.

If you try it, and it sounds OK to you, then I guess it's good enough.

Yes, I know, I was providing it as a reference point (that nobody else seemed to find). Any of the well measuring dongles would be a far better option.

 

[JeremyFife]

If DACs are a solved problem, and a $10 dongle can be pretty great, why are computers only poor/fair/very variable?
Why aren't good enough DACs in everything - a basic commodity?

Just price?

 

[sergeauckland]

I measured the analogue output of my W10 Toshiba laptop and Lenovo tablet, and whilst they could certainly be bettered, they were perfectly adequate for transparency. Frequency response was totally flat 20-20kHz, noise around -90dB below 0dBFS and distortion below 0.01% (i.e. <-80dB) although that was the measuring limit of my analyser, so could have been better than that. Consequently, never saw the point of an external DAC. Having now changed my laptop to W11 Samsung, it doesn't have an analogue audio output so am using an old Behringer UCA202 for audio I/O

S.

 

[Keith_W]

Here is a very old review by Archimago with a Gigabyte motherboard. The take-away is this:

That's back in 2016. He must have gotten very lucky and chosen the world's worst motherboard for audio for his review! As you can see, all the devices have problems and don't output a perfectly flat line, but some are more egregious than others. His Gigabyte (white line) has severe bass roll-off below 200Hz, and his 2009 Macbook Pro (cyan) rolls off high freqs above 6kHz. The Dragonfly USB DAC has close to flawless performance.

Anyway, that article is old but still fun to read.

 

[threni]

If DACs are a solved problem, and a $10 dongle can be pretty great, why are computers only poor/fair/very variable?
Why aren't good enough DACs in everything - a basic commodity?

Just price?

I'd say so. How many people don't buy a laptop because of the dac quality? Make 100,000 laptops and put a $10 dac in and you've spent $1,000,000. For what?

 

[ZolaIII]

This is still probably best article about it.

Onboard sound disadvantages, problems, workarounds, external and internal solutions, headphone guide and basics | igor´sLAB

If you also hear what you see, the external analog amplifier has a nasty background hum, the headphones are much too quiet, and the sound comes across much too flat and powerless in other ways as well…

www.igorslab.de