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Do You Need an External DAC/Headphone Amplifier?

Jimster480

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I can tell you guys that my Acer Nitro 5 has a HORRIBLE onboard sound chip. Even my really efficient 1More Triple Driver Over-Ear sounds much better with the FiiO K1.
I think that while onboard DAC performance is generally acceptable... the Amp performance is atrocious to say the least.

I haven't yet had a computer that is even capable of "sounding good" with $30 headphones. I remember when I had my HTC EVO 4G LTE and It sounded so much better than my desktop with a realtek integrated on my $35 Panasonic RP-HT360's...

Even my $12 Sony Earbuds sounded better with the phone vs my desktop(s).
 

trl

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[...] Now, the real question: What's wrong with my onboard sound // why is it "so good" ? Let's assume the T420s is similar to your current notebook. What do these benchmarks really say? Is the music I'm hearing distorted (which isn't necessarily a bad thing)?

I've listened to over 20 different models of business laptops (mostly Lenovo, HP, Dell, Fujitsu and Apple). The only one with a decent DAC and headamp inside was Apple MacBook Pro and only for sensitive cans, so definitely not a good match with HD 800 S.
 

Ron Texas

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I've listened to over 20 different models of business laptops (mostly Lenovo, HP, Dell, Fujitsu and Apple). The only one with a decent DAC and headamp inside was Apple MacBook Pro and only for sensitive cans, so definitely not a good match with HD 800 S.

Apple uses a CS chip rather than Realtek. It's Toslink will transmit 192/24. The Realtek chips vary from fair to weak. The popular 283 found in NUC's and notebooks is weak. The better ones overlap many outboard DAC's and are found in high end motherboards and AVR's. Low output voltage is a problem driving both cans and power amplifiers without a preamp.
 
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Get a hearing test

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+1, I have Senn HD650 cans and don't miss a whole lot if anything when plugging them in directly to my old HP lappy, or the onboard chip of my tower PC, etc. I'll plug it into my dedicated Emotiva DC-1 DAC/Headamp when I want to be comfortable in the knowledge that I'm getting the best possible sound but any differences are extremly subtle and any of the options give acceptable SQ.
For me it was a case of what i currently had sounds great and it does. But that changed once i got an external amp. Improvements are subtle and one might say its just a different signature, but it's not that. Zero distortion from atom alone is worth it. Onboard used to clip and muddle at parts with a lot of sound layers. Its especially audible in works where an entire band plays or an orchestra.
 
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Sal1950

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Onboard used to clip and muddle at parts with a lot of sound layers.
For sure but that tends to be a whole separate issue. When evaluating any amp, headphone or speaker driver, first thing to determine is if the amp is being stressed in any way. They will all have sound signatures when getting close to the clipping region and will sound different from one another as that signature comes into play.
That's one of the main mistakes I hear when people start to discuss variable SQ in amplifiers.
1, They fail to closely match volume between devices.
2, They aren't taking into account how hard the DUT is being stressed due to things like load impedance and sensitivity.
 

therlane

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Let us know after you get the DX3 Pro. I think you will find better bass performance and overall a more enjoyable experience. To do that, it requires power and low output impedance. There is a difference between good and great. :)

So. Listening to two tracks I love (Hilary Hahn playing Sonata #1 Link) and an mp3 recording of King Crimson's "Starless". Yes: pretty much it. A little bit more bass (hardly noticeable), and more volume. I'm quite underwhelmed, though. I expected more of a clear difference.
I used factory settings, so didn't go into any filter adjustments. Via USB.

Maybe I'll ask a friend and we do a "blind" test on of his favourite tracks. I'll put special attention on matching the volumes. ;-)
 

NDRQ

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As promised, here are the measurements of my desktop Gigabyte Gaming B8 motherboard powered by an i7 CPU:

View attachment 14880

It makes lofty claims of audiophile sound:
View attachment 14881

I will be testing its headphone performance later.

First, let's start with our usual dashboard at full volume (default was 65%):
View attachment 14882

We get decent output compared to my laptop but still shy of 2 volt I like to see.

SINAD is a few dB worse than my laptop! As I always do, I knocked down the level gradually and at -6 dBFS, the performance is much improved:

View attachment 14883

That's 14 dB higher SINAD! Alas, now our output voltage has fallen way down to just 0.67 volts RMS.

Frequency response is ruler flat to 17 kHz:
View attachment 14884

At 22 khz, we have -3.4 dB droop. I like to see flat response to 20 kHz.

This is how it does on jitter and noise:

View attachment 14885

Lots of spikes visible although levels at -120 dB are most likely not audible.

Let's look at intermodulation distortion (IMD) versus level. We use IMD test because it can detect non-linearity without having to have wide capture bandwidth to gather higher frequency harmonics as THD requires. In this case, I am using the SMPTE dual tone which is pretty sensitive to low frequency distortion:
View attachment 14886

She starts doing well, matching dedicated external DACs but then goes nuts right at -35 dBFS but eventually recovers at -15 dB. In that region it is much worse than my laptop (in pink).

Let's analyze that by looking at the spectrum, first at -40 dB where response is well behaved:
View attachment 14887

On the left you see our composite waveform. it is a 60 Hz tone that is being modulated by the 7 kHz tone (shown as solid band because they are too close together). The spectrum on the right shows them nicely separated (the two peaks).

Here is what we get at -30 dB where things should be getting better (due to better SNR), not worse:
View attachment 14888

Focusing on the spectrum, we see a rise in our base noise floor (below 60 Hz tone) accompanies by harmonics of our 60 Hz which now spray throughout the spectrum.

I changed the frequency to 70 Hz but the same outcome remained so it has nothing to do with power supply.

There is definitely a design mistake here which is also visible in some desktop DACs but is much worse in this instance.

Let's look at linearity:

View attachment 14889

The higher output voltage helps it do a lot better than my laptop. Strangely though there is some positive offset as low as -43 dBFS or so. Eyeballing this, looks like we have good linearity up to CD's 96 dB dynamic range.

Speaking of dynamic range, I decided to start showing this from here on since manufacturers always advertise it (as SNR):

View attachment 14890

Even though it misses its 120 dB spec, it is still good at 107 dB.

Summary
We see more design issues here than on my HP Laptop. Peak performance is better but with that comes some anomalies such as mid-level rise in intermodulation distortion, and jitter.

Clearly we need to be measuring these PC subsystems to find the real jewels out there. I am open to building a case-less PC if people can loan their motherboards for testing.

Output power@33 and @300ohm?
 

MOCKBA

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I do not have a laptop for some reason. I do not know what type of audio hardware has my desktop. Therefore I use USB interfaced phone amplifier. It works great, but there is a room for improvement, it is why I started reading the forum.
 

wadec22

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I thought I would add to this.

I have a Sabaj D5 on the way and am currently between DAC units. In the meantime I just have my motherboard (gigabyte aorus pro wifi z390) onboard (ALC1220-VB) running to my atom amp. I am SHOCKED by how good the sound quality is. I am in no way confident I would have been able to discern it vs my old El Dac or Monolith 788 in blind testing. I thought under gaming load it would be rather evident, but it is not.

Excited to see if going from onboard to the D5 is a noticeable jump. Starting to be skeptical.

This reddit user's testing shows that what you have in the system with it may be a rather large factor as well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/b8p9l8
 

fist003

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I thought I would add to this.

I have a Sabaj D5 on the way and am currently between DAC units. In the meantime I just have my motherboard (gigabyte aorus pro wifi z390) onboard (ALC1220-VB) running to my atom amp. I am SHOCKED by how good the sound quality is. I am in no way confident I would have been able to discern it vs my old El Dac or Monolith 788 in blind testing. I thought under gaming load it would be rather evident, but it is not.

Excited to see if going from onboard to the D5 is a noticeable jump. Starting to be skeptical.

This reddit user's testing shows that what you have in the system with it may be a rather large factor as well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/b8p9l8

Hi,

Mind sharing your thoughts on the onboard audio compared to the D5...?
 

notabenem

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I was wondering if anyone has some meaningful number for recent Lenovo laptops (e.g. X1 Extreme, any generation). Mine is the first gen X1E, audio through Intel:
Code:
lspci | fgrep -i audio
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
 

Foulchet

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Are the differences measured from the desktop motherboard even audible ? I never really AB'ed my only "DAC" (Marantz CD6006 headphone output with iPhone connected using the USB host input) against my motherboard but I can say that the differences are hard to catch and might be completely subjective even if at low levels the CD6006 seems fuller (with raised levels, they are both clean as hell). The available power is also quite high, honestly 30% is far enough for my headphones (AKG 712 Pro). My motherboard is a (2012) Asus ROG Rampage Gene IV with a SupremeFX III chip. I have also a more recent motherboard (Asus Z390-E gaming) but the computer is not in the same place as my audio gear so I never tested it really (aside from RF headphones but RF headphones are powered so there is nothing to test).

Honestly, I always have been skeptical about external DACs (and about most of Hifi brands to be honest - they might not make scam on purpose but big brands like Apple, Asus, HP, etc. have a lot more production volume and nothing to earn to distort sound - even if I bought it but for the tactile/visual pleasure and for actual loudspeakers). If I buy one in the future, it would be only for a "visual placebo" (and I bought my headphone amp for the same reason).
 

threni

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Are the differences measured from the desktop motherboard even audible ? I never really AB'ed my only "DAC" (Marantz CD6006 headphone output with iPhone connected using the USB host input) against my motherboard but I can say that the differences are hard to catch and might be completely subjective even if at low levels the CD6006 seems fuller (with raised levels, they are both clean as hell). The available power is also quite high, honestly 30% is far enough for my headphones (AKG 712 Pro). My motherboard is a (2012) Asus ROG Rampage Gene IV with a SupremeFX III chip. I have also a more recent motherboard (Asus Z390-E gaming) but the computer is not in the same place as my audio gear so I never tested it really (aside from RF headphones but RF headphones are powered so there is nothing to test).

Honestly, I always have been skeptical about external DACs (and about most of Hifi brands to be honest - they might not make scam on purpose but big brands like Apple, Asus, HP, etc. have a lot more production volume and nothing to earn to distort sound - even if I bought it but for the tactile/visual pleasure and for actual loudspeakers). If I buy one in the future, it would be only for a "visual placebo" (and I bought my headphone amp for the same reason).

I guess you'd need to check your current system's performance in terms of SINAD etc. If any problems are inaudible then don't buy a DAC. If the problems are audible then either buy a DAC or borrow one and see if 1) you can hear the difference (you'd need to perform this test properly to get meaningful results), and 2) is the difference something you feel would justify getting a DAC (ie the DAC sounds different AND it sounds better, to you).

I've no idea how good current Marantz CD players are; I have one which I bought maybe 15/20 years ago which I no longer use and around the time I stopped using it was because I could not tell any difference whatsoever between that and a little £30 cheapo portable Sony CD player. And the latter had the convenience of being able to play MP3s from the CDs. If I had to use CDs these days I'd probably start looking at the cheapest one which had a digital out.
 

Foulchet

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I already (blindly) AB'ed motherboard vs the lighning->jack Apple dongle using ALAC quality (16/48) and the motherboard won (but like 0.5% better, so probably nothing as I matched the level using my ears and a rough Apple Watch mic measurement) and I know that the latter has had a great review here. I may compare it to my CD6006 but I have to figure out how to quick switch and it will not be blind. But honestly I feel like that all my gear sounds the same aside from some devices which are significantly worse (but just a little bit), especially with headphones (vs loudspeakers which are a bit more revealing). So I will probably not buy an external DAC unless I functionally need it.

I've no idea how good current Marantz CD players are; I have one which I bought maybe 15/20 years ago which I no longer use and around the time I stopped using it was because I could not tell any difference whatsoever between that and a little £30 cheapo portable Sony CD player. And the latter had the convenience of being able to play MP3s from the CDs. If I had to use CDs these days I'd probably start looking at the cheapest one which had a digital out.

Aha honestly I have the same opinion and do not even feel the need to compare it to other players (consoles, Blu ray player, etc.) as I am pretty convinced that CD players are already optimized the hell out. I bought the Marantz only for the visual pleasure of putting a CD on a metal-cased player, there is some great "placebo" in this relaxed ritual. But what convinced me that it was not that a "stupid" purchase was also the built-in headphone amp which is quite powerful and clean (cleaner than the speakers amp to my ears) and the (now very rare) USB host iphone-compatible port which I use a lot and which is very convenient !
 
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