Did I upgrade my audio chain correctly?

[leops1984]

Over the holidays I decided to upgrade my PC's audio chain, with a bit of an eye to getting into streaming. While all of the items I bought are still in transit to me, I'd like to know if I made the right calls with regards to how I upgraded my equipment.

Currently my setup is very simple: for playback my Sennheiser HD6XX is plugged into a SMSL SAP VI headphone amplifier, which goes to my motherboard's microphone out. For recording I use an Modmic 5 plugged into the headphone port.

Originally the goal was just to stop using my motherboard's audio, but I ended up getting the following items:

• a Yamaha AG03 mixer
• Massdrop Liquid Spark headphone amplifier
• Samson Q2U microphone
• E-mu Teak headphones

So now my playback chain would be:

PC -> Yamaha AG03 -> Liquid Spark -> headphone (either HD6XX or E-mu Teak)

This is just for headphone use; the PC also has a pair of ELAC B5s and a subwoofer connected to a SMSL Q5 Pro for speaker usage. I didn't modify that in this upgrade cycle.

For recording it would now be:

PC -> Yamaha AG03 -> Microphone (either Modmic or Q2U)

Quality wise, are my components reasonably well-matched to each other? The biggest question mark for me is I don't know how good the Yamaha's DAC is, although I imagine just getting it out of my PC's case would have some benefit. Would I have derived any significant benefit from going to a discrete external DAC? Any thoughts on my upgrade choices are welcome.

 

[Willem]

I guess the core question is about the DAC/ADC on your PC motherboard, but you do not tell us anything about it. Integrated DACs can be pretty bad, but not necessarily so (Apple seems to do really well). Archimago has tested some laptops and the result was pretty bad. This is confirmed by my own informal listening tests with various laptops and desktops in the family connected to a high end audio system. Laptops are worse than desktops, and more modern ones are better than older ones. All of them were easily beaten by even a cheap external usb DAC like the Behringer UCA 202, with the modern high end desktop as the only exception. The test was informal and the sample was too small to mean that much, but the pattern seems to make sense. So I would be surprised if the onboard DAC and ADC are better than the Yamaha's.

 

[leops1984]

I guess the core question is about the DAC/ADC on your PC motherboard, but you do not tell us anything about it. Integrated DACs can be pretty bad, but not necessarily so (Apple seems to do really well). Archimago has tested some laptops and the result was pretty bad. This is confirmed by my own informal listening tests with various laptops and desktops in the family connected to a high end audio system. Laptops are worse than desktops, and more modern ones are better than older ones. All of them were easily beaten by even a cheap external usb DAC like the Behringer UCA 202, with the modern high end desktop as the only exception. The test was informal and the sample was too small to mean that much, but the pattern seems to make sense. So I would be surprised if the onboard DAC and ADC are better than the Yamaha's.

My PC's motherboard is an older (circa 2012) Gigabyte Z77 motherboard. Not exactly the most modern desktop. My curiosity is as much... how much would I have gained if I'd gone to a real discrete DAC.

 

[sergeauckland]

There seems to be a lot more emphasis on DAC performance, probably for obvious reasons, but if you're doing your own recordings, as I do, I'm much more interested in ADC performance.

Good DACs seem to be two-a-penny, as evidenced by the UCA202, but good ADCs more rare. For example, when I tried three different samples of the UMC202HD and 204HD looped back-to-back I couldn't get half decent performance suitable for making measurements, so went back to my trusty old Lexicon.

I still have a Digigram VXpocket PCMCIA card I use for recordings as it has a very decent ADC, albeit limited to 48k sampling.

I don't know the Yamaha mixer, and can't find a detailed spec or measurements, so can't comment.

S.