Has anyone been able to A/B between computer on-board DAC and dedicated DAC and feel the difference?

[kandamrgam]

Hello all,

We all know that the on-board DAC of a PC often measures poorly compared to dedicated DACs. But is this difference good enough to make a noticeable difference in hearing?

I know the amplifier is the important stage that makes a difference for hard to drive headphones, but let's level the playing field...

Scenario 1 (easy to drive headphones):
1. Computer -> 3.5 mm jack -> headphone
2. Computer -> USB out -> dedicated DAC/amp -> headphone

Scenario 2 (hard to drive headphones):
1. Computer -> 3.5 mm jack to RCA cable -> amp -> headphone
2. Computer -> USB out -> dedicated DAC -> amp -> headphone

In both scenarios, I am trying to learn what noticeable difference can dedicated DAC make to sound quality (not just theoretical performance).

 

[roladyzator]

I did something like this years ago.
I just got an Aune X1s DAC/amp and though I was hearing nice improvement over my onboard audio (headphone jack of Lenovo Thinkpad T430).
Better detail, soundstage, deeper bass etc. I've "felt" the difference, for sure.
Before purchasing the X1s, I have seen reviews on Head-Fi, where you can see some people call it bright or sterile, while other thought is was warm, etc.

The $250 or so for the X1s was no small money, so I've decided to do an ABX test and keep it or return it based on the results.

The headphones I've used were KRK KNS8400 (can be considered easy to drive, lacking in deep bass but with nice mids and treble) and Beyerdynamic DT150 (250 Ohm, mid-bass heavy with treble issues).

I've played my music through Foobar2000 in WASAPI Exclusive (this is important - onboard audio solutions often have certain "enhancements" enabled that can help laptop's built-in speakers but negatively affect sound through any half-decent speakers / headphones).

I've set volume to the similar level by ear and asked my wife to switch the device the headphones were plugged to.

I've attempted 10 or so tests with each heaphone, trying to identify which output was playing.
I've failed miserably. I've felt I was guessing and get 60-70% right, which was not enough.
Any "upgrades" I've noticed on X1s were also there when listening to the other device.

Now, there are worse laptops than Thinkpads. Most Dells I've used had quite noisy headphone output, while Thinkpads were quiet.
I haven't measured the T430, but the T460 I had later had about 1.6V RMS into high impedances and about 100 dB SINAD. Quite bad for the standards of this site, but serviceable.

Around the same time I did a similar test with Fiio E10k and Meier Audio Corda Aria (both measured on ASR) and again, couldn't find a difference when music was playing.
Without music playback, one could hear very faint noise from Aria's USB input (it's a good amp, but it's USB DAC is bad).

I've sold both Aria and Aune.

If you don't immediately hear noise or distortion, one thing to worry about is high output impedance (not an issue with high impedance headphones), which changes the frequency response and lowers the power output for low impedance headphones (multi-driver IEMs are most affected). This and any audio effects that are auto-enabled.

 

[roladyzator]

It's easy to identify noise, but not so easy to idenfity distortion.
You could try playing around with https://distortaudio.org and add increasing levels of distortion to your music until you have a clear understanding of how it sounds like.

Then you'd be more certain whether you hear distortion or not with your onboard audio.
Again, similar to noise, distortion isn't an issue until it very clearly is, since it introduces unwanted content to your music.
But before it does that (before it becomes audible), there's little reason to believe it would somehow degrade detail, soundstage, instrument separation etc. That's often only in your head - for better or worse.

 

[DVDdoug]

ONCE I had a soundcard that made noise when the hard drive was accessed.

And with some headphones my laptop doesn't go loud enough (when I'm on the mood to listen loud). Part of that "problem" is that I use ReplayGain to volume-match my music library and that tends to lower the volume of most songs.

Usually noise and output power are the only concerns. Frequency response and distortion are almost always better than human hearing with any electronics unless you over drive an amplifier (or something( into clipping/distortion. (With speakers & headphones it's a different story... frequency response (on an off axis) always varies.)

 

[TurtlePaul]

Sure. Some PCs have high output impedances and a lot of noise. There is a huge difference between something higher end like a ALC1220 and something lower end like ALC897 or something old like the Realtek 1186. There are also vast differences in power supply and noise suppression on different motherboard implementations.

 

[jcarys]

Personally, every compute I've ever owned has had internal noise that I could hear on headphones. Usually it would be masked by the music, but as soon as I got to "silence" before or after a track, you could easily hear the noise. USB DACs are so easy to use and so cheap, it's just no longer worth even messing around with the computer's internal DAC. It doesn't matter whether it's sensitive IEMs or harder to drive over the ears, just get something decent that Amir has recommended and never have to think about it again.