Do You Need an External DAC/Headphone Amplifier?

[rdodev]

I'm sorry but the statement is too broad.

I was clear I'm referring to higher-end gear ($1500+, although I'm sure some would consider that the low end). Let's take, for example, Armin's laptop sound card vs. Schiit Jut or Yggy (which cost in the thousands brand new). We can objectively say that the unassuming, unpretentious built-sound card is objectively better, yet you have people in this very thread trying to discredit this analytical test because of cognitive dissonance. And certainly any audiophile forum will get in extensive flame wars about this as well. The key here is that those "engineering" challenges you speak of are indeed being (and have been) solved by sound "mainstream" card makers and some have been for decades (in case of pro studio gear) without much fanfare or the elaborate and bombastic statements we see from hi-fi shops.

 

[Sythrix]

I was clear I'm referring to higher-end gear ($1500+, although I'm sure some would consider that the low end). Let's take, for example, Armin's laptop sound card vs. Schiit Jut or Yggy (which cost in the thousands brand new). We can objectively say that the unassuming, unpretentious built-sound card is objectively better, yet you have people in this very thread trying to discredit this analytical test because of cognitive dissonance. And certainly any audiophile forum will get in extensive flame wars about this as well. The key here is that those "engineering" challenges you speak of are indeed being (and have been) solved by sound "mainstream" card makers and some have been for decades (in case of pro studio gear) without much fanfare or the elaborate and bombastic statements we see from hi-fi shops.

You're simply speaking of marketing. "Snake Oil" is a product which has purported benefits that simply aren't there. It is a false product. There is a wide variety of marketing and quality among DACs and to say "well see, this one example proves they're snake oil" is ridiculous. There are many manufacturers and a wide berth of quality.

I'm not arguing your main point that many are simply not worth the expense... oh no, I completely agree, but the term of "snake oil" is not appropriate here.

 

[Sal1950]

It takes a lot of time and engineering to make them objectively better.

Yep, just look at Topping LOL

 

[rdodev]

I'm not arguing you main point that many are simply not worth the expense... oh no, I completely agree, but the term of "snake oil" is not appropriate here.

Gotcha. I misunderstood what you were arguing about.

 

[bennetng]

No, and certainly some marketing by some manufacturers can be considered snake oil: "Velvet Sound" anyone?

Speaking of AKM, such a description really annoys me.

 

[Sythrix]

Speaking of AKM, such a description really annoys me.
View attachment 15330

Why'd you have to show this to me? It gets worse the longer you look at it.

Is natural =/= original? Tone =/= Sound?

Apparently they ran out of adjectives in middle of their remarks there: Original.

How is traditional sound a more powerful sound than an original traditional tone?

I'm sure someone will come along and explain to us plebeians why these are the way they are.

 

[JustIntonation]

As for the HP DAC..
I have a HP Probook 6570b which I'm pretty sure has the same DAC as the HP laptop tested by Amir, and just compared it to my Anedio D2 DAC and the difference is absolutely huge.
I did this "subjective" test on a pair of JBL LSR305P mkII listening distance 1m in a big room partly treated with absorbers around my listening position (building a studio here but not yet finished though my listening postition is now mostly free from any direct reflections).
I don't consider the LSR305P to be good speakers for resolving finer details, they have their own "grainy/distortion" thing going on which is especially apparent when listening nearfield with enough absorption. But apparently the faults in the HP DAC are big enough to be very audible.
My subjective experience is that relative to the Anedio D2 the sound becomes more "closed", it's hard to believe they both have a flat frequency response as the HP DAC doesn't "sound" flat, it sounds a bit muddy in the upper/mid bass, and the highest treble seems lacking / less airy. With songs that push the treble it's quite a difference, the HP DAC sounds distorted in parts of the treble. For instance I put on a commercial song 'Martin Garrix - High on life' (always put a few hit songs in my test playlist usually for listening to frequency balance, you'd be surprised how many "hi-end hifi" setups can't even properly reproduce commercial hitsongs because their freq balance is all off and then blame the songs lol) and the HP DAC messes it up big time. When the loud synth melody comes in at around 1:15 the Anedio D2 does it very smoothly and makes clearly audible the synth sound and its noise aspect, but with the HP DAC this same synth sound is not smooth at all but "grainy" and part of the synth sound and part of the noise aspect of that sound are not resolved but instead you hear it as distortion. In total the synth sound and noise sound and distortion added together kinda give the same frequency / amplitude as the Anedio D2 does, except with the Anedio D2 it's all resolved and smooth as hell.
Now I'm not imagining things here or have "super ears" or whatever. This is surely audible to anybody with working ears who is pointed out what to listen for (under my listening circumstances, all bets are off when people do a listening test in a reverberant room non nearfield etc which will almost always hide certain details).
So I'm surprised the HP DAC still scores a Sinad of 87dB! It makes me think yet again that with a DAC distortion can hide in sneaky corners from measurements.. Surely the distortion I'm hearing in the example I gave is not 87dB down. It's a song with virtually no dynamic range, for me to be able to hear this distortion this clearly means it's more like -10dB or something with that particular sound. I keep getting the feeling that DACs often manage to do something wrong which isn't normal harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion. This just doesn't feel like the disortion from an amp or speaker. It's something to do with information that's not being resolved.. SRC errors or something? Or some form of jitter which doesn't show up equally distributed but very audible in certain ways at specific points? What can it be?

 

[amirm]

I have tested countless DACs with the same DAC chip inside yet with very different final performance. Each laptop motherboard is different and likely designed by an entirely different company/design team. So one cannot generalize from one system to another. This is one reason external DACs make sense: they provide constant performance regardless of what system they are plugged into.

 

[Soniclife]

As for the HP DAC..
I have a HP Probook 6570b which I'm pretty sure has the same DAC as the HP laptop tested by Amir, and just compared it to my Anedio D2 DAC and the difference is absolutely huge.
I did this "subjective" test on a pair of JBL LSR305P mkII listening distance 1m in a big room partly treated with absorbers around my listening position (building a studio here but not yet finished though my listening postition is now mostly free from any direct reflections).
I don't consider the LSR305P to be good speakers for resolving finer details, they have their own "grainy/distortion" thing going on which is especially apparent when listening nearfield with enough absorption. But apparently the faults in the HP DAC are big enough to be very audible.
My subjective experience is that relative to the Anedio D2 the sound becomes more "closed", it's hard to believe they both have a flat frequency response as the HP DAC doesn't "sound" flat, it sounds a bit muddy in the upper/mid bass, and the highest treble seems lacking / less airy. With songs that push the treble it's quite a difference, the HP DAC sounds distorted in parts of the treble. For instance I put on a commercial song 'Martin Garrix - High on life' (always put a few hit songs in my test playlist usually for listening to frequency balance, you'd be surprised how many "hi-end hifi" setups can't even properly reproduce commercial hitsongs because their freq balance is all off and then blame the songs lol) and the HP DAC messes it up big time. When the loud synth melody comes in at around 1:15 the Anedio D2 does it very smoothly and makes clearly audible the synth sound and its noise aspect, but with the HP DAC this same synth sound is not smooth at all but "grainy" and part of the synth sound and part of the noise aspect of that sound are not resolved but instead you hear it as distortion. In total the synth sound and noise sound and distortion added together kinda give the same frequency / amplitude as the Anedio D2 does, except with the Anedio D2 it's all resolved and smooth as hell.
Now I'm not imagining things here or have "super ears" or whatever. This is surely audible to anybody with working ears who is pointed out what to listen for (under my listening circumstances, all bets are off when people do a listening test in a reverberant room non nearfield etc which will almost always hide certain details).
So I'm surprised the HP DAC still scores a Sinad of 87dB! It makes me think yet again that with a DAC distortion can hide in sneaky corners from measurements.. Surely the distortion I'm hearing in the example I gave is not 87dB down. It's a song with virtually no dynamic range, for me to be able to hear this distortion this clearly means it's more like -10dB or something with that particular sound. I keep getting the feeling that DACs often manage to do something wrong which isn't normal harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion. This just doesn't feel like the disortion from an amp or speaker. It's something to do with information that's not being resolved.. SRC errors or something? Or some form of jitter which doesn't show up equally distributed but very audible in certain ways at specific points? What can it be?

Was this a level matched comparison?

 

[JustIntonation]

Was this a level matched comparison?

Yes it was best as I could.
But I would have no problem at all picking out the differences in a blind test even if levels were different. (though this wasn't a blind listening test as I had to switch cables).
Though indeed as Amir said, I don't know if my HP measures as good as his. Can do a quick test later though to at least see if mine doesn't have any glaring errors (I suspect not as my HP DAC is still the best onboard DAC I've ever heard).

 

[Sal1950]

Yes it was best as I could.
But I would have no problem at all picking out the differences in a blind test even if levels were different. (though this wasn't a blind listening test as I had to switch cables).

If true, that is telling you something is out of kilter with one or the other. Any difference should never be that big?

 

[urfaust]

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/#audio
@Sythrix mentioned.

I had several high end Asus motherboards, currently the maximus code with all sorts of advertised "supreme Hi-fi" specs, yet it always had been the worst sound i could experience. Even relatively low impedance headphones don't work well with theses boards (DT990 or K702). No power, terrible distortions everywhere, the DT990 is particularly horrendous last time i plugged it in eventhough it's just 32 Ohms, hopefully i don't use these headphones on the PC, but i that would be nice if i could casually (so considering a tiny dac/amp)
If you guys weren't overseas i would ship one of my ROG motherboard to get the bottom of it, what the hell are they doing with the audio seems like really wrong voodoo.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I had several high end Asus motherboards, currently the maximus code with all sorts of advertised "supreme Hi-fi" specs, yet it always had been the worst sound i could experience. Even relatively low impedance headphones don't work well with theses boards (DT990 or K702). No power, terrible distortions everywhere, the DT990 is particularly horrendous last time i plugged it in eventhough it's just 32 Ohms, hopefully i don't use these headphones on the PC, but i that would be nice if i could casually (so considering a tiny dac/amp)
If you guys weren't overseas i would ship one of my ROG motherboard to get the bottom of it, what the hell are they doing with the audio seems like really wrong voodoo.

Have you tried going to Control Panel - Sound - Playback - (select device) Properties - Enhancements, and then making sure all "enhancements" are disabled? I have a Lenovo laptop with supposedly high quality sound from JBL via a Realtek soundcard, and the quality is unbelievably bad without the enhancements disabled.

 

[urfaust]

Have you tried going to Control Panel - Sound - Playback - (select device) Properties - Enhancements, and then making sure all "enhancements" are disabled? I have a Lenovo laptop with supposedly high quality sound from JBL via a Realtek soundcard, and the quality is unbelievably bad without the enhancements disabled.

Yes i ve checked that dozen of times in the last ten years having ROG motherboards. I would bet they are even worse in measurements than the cheapest boards. It could be a design choice for some particular reasons as they are really intended for breaking record of extreme overclocking, running off water, LN2 and whatnot and they are amazing for it, yet they just don't want to be seen as lacking in features, but im sure they don't give a damn about the audio maybe they even do something wrong intentionally in the circuit, i think this could be fun to test.

I remember owning a few step down versions more gaming oriented, they were not as bad (still pretty bad)

 

[derp1n]

Have you tried going to Control Panel - Sound - Playback - (select device) Properties - Enhancements, and then making sure all "enhancements" are disabled? I have a Lenovo laptop with supposedly high quality sound from JBL via a Realtek soundcard, and the quality is unbelievably bad without the enhancements disabled.

Same question for JustIntonation.

Sometimes you need to go further, uninstalling the vendor driver and installing the more basic one from MSFT - I've seen various sound processing applied that didn't show up as an "enhancement". I suspect this sort of crap is responsible for more "PC audio/DACs suck" than anything else. MSFT and the vendors have a lot to answer for.

 

[JustIntonation]

Same question for JustIntonation.

Sometimes you need to go further, uninstalling the vendor driver and installing the more basic one from MSFT - I've seen various sound processing applied that didn't show up as an "enhancement". I suspect this sort of crap is responsible for more "PC audio/DACs suck" than anything else. MSFT and the vendors have a lot to answer for.

Yes I have turned this off, standard first thing I do. (though I don't think I've ever seen it actually do something by default.) Have by chance also run this particular laptop with default windows audio drivers as the IDT drivers didn't come for Windows 10 by standard, and with the IDT drivers installed later.
Could check later though if anything is improved by resampling to higher sampling rates in Foobar2000, as the sound kind of reminds me in the distance of very bad resampling..

 

[Sal1950]

I think the least AKM's advertising department should do is to avoid typos.

You know what happened to the last guy that was perfect?

 

[Grave]

I am listening to my integrated sound which I have not even bothered to do before. It sounds adequately good, but it does not get loud enough. I definitely need an amp. There is no line out, so it is not useful.

 

[Darwin]

I'd be interested to see some numbers on the last few years of 15" MacBook Pro. I have one at home and one issued by work plus a work issued HP 840 business laptop with Windows 10 that I can barely stand to use. The HD6XX sounds pretty darn good out of the Mac laptops although not as full and vibrant a sound as it would with a DAC/AMP. Lately I've been using the HD58X at work which is lower impedance and a real bargain.

 

[amirm]

Let me dig up my two year old Macbook and find out what it has. Did they have analog output or did they eliminate that then?