"Audiophile" motherboards

[Sokel]

I'm talking about the ones who advertise "audiophile" grade constructions,with separate USB paths,etc.
Truth or snake oil?And do we have any measurements?

 

[Willem]

I would be suspicious of anything sold as audiophile. However, I would love to see measurements of inbuilt audio from modern PC's.

 

[Sokel]

I would be suspicious of anything sold as audiophile. However, I would love to see measurements of inbuilt audio from modern PC's.

Me too.And I'm not talking about traditional "audiophile" companies,I'm talking about the main PC companies,like Gigabyte and Asus who have some products like this.

 

[Willem]

Archimago posted some measurements a while ago. Perhaps not surprisingly Apple did well. Also, more recent stuff seems to have improved. However, more, and more recent, measurements would be great to have, and all the more since we have learned that designing a decent DAC is not that difficult any more. But a PC is a potentially challenging environment.

 

[GXAlan]

EVGA did really well with their audiophile product and had measurable improvements over their non audiophile line

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

 

[Sokel]

EVGA did really well with their audiophile product and had measurable improvements over their non audiophile line

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

Yes I saw that and it's good that they improve over time.
But I'm talking about motherboards who advertise features like shielded usb's paths,"audio" grade capacitors,separate USB lines where you connect your dac,etc,not their own integrated audio specifically.

 

[ZolaIII]

Get a motherboard with SPDIF/Toslink out and use it to connect external DAC like that end of the story (no EMI, no ground loops...).

 

[AnalogSteph]

But a PC is a potentially challenging environment.

Not to mention that in these days of powdercoated everything, ground bonding may vary, plus the ground return currents of high-power GPUs that are travelling via the PCIe slot have been documented to be surprisingly high.

Quality differences between boards do absolutely exist, the cheaper ones will have fewer layers which manifests in less layout flexibility. Shielding cans are neat but mostly decoration IMHO, as the problems that plague onboard audio tend tend not to be electrostatic in nature. I suppose they would be keeping off RF from built-in WiFi.

Some measurements from my Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI are in this thread. Either I got lucky wuith this board or it's the particular constellation of case / PSU / no GPU that's helping matters. Folks on the AMD side of things have apparently been less happy with boards of the same tier.

 

[Vacceo]

Paying extra for "audiophile" stuff on a motherboard does not make any sense. Output the sound with an optic cable or HDMI to your device of choice (active speaker, DAC and amp...) and enjoy.

 

[Sokel]

Some measurements from my Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI are in this thread. Either I got lucky wuith this board or it's the particular constellation of case / PSU / no GPU that's helping matters. Folks on the AMD side of things have apparently been less happy with boards of the same tier.

Allthough not definite is a good indicator.
Thanks!

 

[Sokel]

Paying extra for "audiophile" stuff on a motherboard does not make any sense. Output the sound with an optic cable or HDMI to your device of choice (active speaker, DAC and amp...) and enjoy.

For good or bad the majority of dac's are built around their usb port.
That's how you can play DSD256 or 512,etc.
Not that is needed but is the principle,the capabilities,if it exists why go limited?

 

[Vacceo]

For good or bad the majority of dac's are built around their usb port.
That's how you can play DSD256 or 512,etc.
Not that is needed but is the principle,the capabilities,if it exists why go limited?

I agree that knowing for the sake of information and comparison is fine. It´s always nice to appreciate good engineering

 

[BannedForever]

This looks like a very promising snake oil:

A PC with a linear power supply...

 

[Sokel]

This looks like a very promising snake oil:

A PC with a linear power supply...

Ooh,please...

 

[ZolaIII]

For good or bad the majority of dac's are built around their usb port.
That's how you can play DSD256 or 512,etc.
Not that is needed but is the principle,the capabilities,if it exists why go limited?

Or you can convert it to PCM and send it trogh optical connection, there is no DAC that can clear more than 23 bit SINAD and 192000 Hz is to much even for your cat (that has range close to 176400 Hz).

 

[Sokel]

Or you can convert it to PCM and send it trogh optical connection, there is no DAC that can clear more than 23 bit SINAD and 192000 Hz is to much every for your cat (that has range close to 176400 Hz).

If it's not passing all the weird fan/cpu-gpu activity is good enough for me,in the past I had a rig who I could hear everything!


But even with my present PC which is silent in terms of what I here I have funny things to show:

That's a sloppy measurement of the Khadas tone1.
See the grass?
Now,If I change the polarity of the PC's wall socket (in some countries in Europe you can do that,line-neutral-earth have a code but is not always following it,so...) the grass on the left approaches the 100's region instead of the 120's you see here.

Not to mention than even the placement of the measured devices count but that is something else.
Ok,since I do not hear it I shouldn't care.
But is the principle.

 

[antcollinet]

If you are outputting analogue - there may be some merit in carefully laying out the Dac area of the motherboard.

But who does that? I don't know the premium charged for such boards, but I'll bet it is cheaper to use a digital connection to an external Dac, and then the motherboard becomes irrelevant to the sound quality.

 

[Dunring]

EVGA did really well with their audiophile product and had measurable improvements over their non audiophile line

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

Yeah the CEO of EVGA is a serious audio fan. Their Nu Audio card is really nice too, supplemental power, AKM 4490, replaceable opamps.. When the AKM fire happened they just stopped making them. It wasn't mind blowing performance, but a step up from typical gaming sound cards though.

 

[Sokel]

but I'll bet it is cheaper to use a digital connection to an external Dac, and then the motherboard becomes irrelevant to the sound quality.

That's the whole point they advertise,a clean digital path to USB,sometimes labeled as such.

 

[Sokel]

There's an example: