Motherboard integrated audio card VS Audio DAC

[Mbison]

The front panel outputs are always connected to the motherboard via long cables that are prone to picking up interference.

My fiancée had the same problem with her gaming rig, and I fixed it by rerouting the cable as far away from the internal components as possible, and using the steel enclosure as shielding as much as possible. A little thing that made a huge difference.

Well, with my card, it's the rear port, the one closest to the components, which is the least subject to interference. It's weird.

 

[dlaloum]

Well, with my card, it's the rear port, the one closest to the components, which is the least subject to interference. It's weird.

Lengthy cables act like radio antennae, picking up interference along the way - even though the rear port is closer to the components... with the front port, you get the interference from the components onto the DAC/Soundcard components (which are typically very close to the rear port - and designed to resist interference) + whatever is picked up on the way to the front....
So unless you are very careful, or use special shielded cables, you are likely to find the rear port better than the front....

The inside of a PC is a messy environment for EMI.... - hence lots of people play safe and run a digital output to an external box where the DAC then converts outside of the noisy environment.
Which does not mean you cannot make it work within a PC - clearly you can! - but the circuitry on the motherboard is completely within the design engineers control.... and they can engineer, shielding PCB traces, and layers, to end up with a good result (after all even specialised audio devices today, are basically computers with CPU's and RAM etc....) - but once you start running a cable with an analogue signal in it - all bets are off - you may be running it past something that generates lots of EMI... no way for the design engineer to take that into account, short of the manufacturer including expensive shielded cables.... which most users aren't interested in, and will increase the cost of the motherboard, decrease sales, etc....

15 Years ago the preferred connection to a DAC was SPDIF - and often optical SPDIF (so no electrical connection, no ground loop risk, no EMI transfer) - nowadays it tends to be USB....

 

[Killingbeans]

Well, with my card, it's the rear port, the one closest to the components, which is the least subject to interference. It's weird.

Not weird at all. The PCB layout is optimized to avoid interference, while the front panel cable is just made extra long to accommodate whatever motherboard people choose to put in the enclosure. If you aren't careful with the routing, it works as an antenna.

 

[Mbison]

Lengthy cables act like radio antennae, picking up interference along the way - even though the rear port is closer to the components... with the front port, you get the interference from the components onto the DAC/Soundcard components (which are typically very close to the rear port - and designed to resist interference) + whatever is picked up on the way to the front....
So unless you are very careful, or use special shielded cables, you are likely to find the rear port better than the front....

The inside of a PC is a messy environment for EMI.... - hence lots of people play safe and run a digital output to an external box where the DAC then converts outside of the noisy environment.
Which does not mean you cannot make it work within a PC - clearly you can! - but the circuitry on the motherboard is completely within the design engineers control.... and they can engineer, shielding PCB traces, and layers, to end up with a good result (after all even specialised audio devices today, are basically computers with CPU's and RAM etc....) - but once you start running a cable with an analogue signal in it - all bets are off - you may be running it past something that generates lots of EMI... no way for the design engineer to take that into account, short of the manufacturer including expensive shielded cables.... which most users aren't interested in, and will increase the cost of the motherboard, decrease sales, etc....

15 Years ago the preferred connection to a DAC was SPDIF - and often optical SPDIF (so no electrical connection, no ground loop risk, no EMI transfer) - nowadays it tends to be USB....

Thank you for your explanation! I have just noticed on this forum that someone has already covered the subject of this ALC 1220 and in which recommends using the SPDIF output to connect their DAC.

Realtek ALC1220 - a look on PC sound

If you purchased new desktop PC in last 3-4 years you probably have one of those on your motherboard. Since I spent few last weeks trying to make it work as best I could, here are few findings: 1. Technical data about the chip were already summarized here...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Mbison]

So I tried the test with a "soundless" audio source. I heard about this source: "23 Seconds of Silence, by Wilco, and....nothing!
I still don't hear anything. Regarding these micro noises, I understood that they mainly came from the GPU, however mine and its fans only activate for AAA games. Maybe when I play this class of games, I will hear these famous noises? I haven't had the chance to experience it.
That said, as said previously, I noticed that the subject of this ALC 1220 was discussed on your forum and a certain "Offler" did a fairly detailed test.

Realtek ALC1220 - a look on PC sound

If you purchased new desktop PC in last 3-4 years you probably have one of those on your motherboard. Since I spent few last weeks trying to make it work as best I could, here are few findings: 1. Technical data about the chip were already summarized here...

www.audiosciencereview.com

So I guess he's right, that we would hear "micro noises". I wouldn't want to question his work, this person is most certainly right.
As for the "ASIO routing", I was not able to carry out this test, I am sorry (I install the program on my win11 and nothing appears..idk).

So I'm going to get myself a DAC , that actually suits me. That said, unless I am hearing impaired, I find that the Realtek ALC 1220 does very well and that the difference with the external amps is by deduction quite subtle!

I THANK YOU ALL FOR RESPONDING TO MY POST

 

[AnalogSteph]

I certainly can't complain about the performance of the ALC1200 on my ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-PLUS WIFI (now that's a mouthful!) either, at least what I used it for - a line-level output for my speakers. It's technically a downgrade over my previous soundcard (a Xonar D1 which was no longer an option because PCI), but still generally good enough. The output side sport over 110 dB(A) of dynamic range, ruler-flat frequency response and acceptable, likely inaudible distortion. Output impedance isn't quite as low. The input side actually does way better than spec in terms of dynamic range. I don't like the level of periodic filter ripple but honestly have seen much worse than +/-0.025 dB. Plenty good enough for recording spoken word via a condenser mic on a mixer once in a blue moon anyway.

Front panel jack performance is going to depend upon front panel and cable construction a lot. If that comes pre-screwed-up by e.g. connecting audio ground and USB ground together, you will have fun. On the other hand, there's just one ground pin in the entire HDA front panel connector and the wire gauge tends to be pretty thin, so ground return resistance is not ideal for lower-impedance headphones and headphone/mic leakage may be an issue. If you have the skills to modify this cable, I would at least beef up that ground conductor a fair bit. Using actual shielded audio cable for the headphone and microphone connections would be another option if you feel fancy.

It has to be said that onboard headphone outs rarely compete with proper amplifiers in terms of output impedance, 75 ohms is pretty much the norm and you have to go up to an ALC1220 to get a DC-coupled headphone out.

 

[paudio]

In my experience it really differs per mainboard. I typically just avoid using built in DACs and just reach for the $10 (US model) Apple USB-C to 3.5mm dongle dac. My gaming PC is pretty good but there is a higher noise floor and I don't think quite as good sound as the Apple dongle dac. Surface Pro 8 sounds pretty decent. All modern macs also seem to be pretty decent too.

Basically I don't notice much difference going from an Apple Dongle DAC to anything more expensive. I will notice if the noise floor is too high, output impedence is too high (low impedence headphones/iems frequency response is affected), it distorts (not powerful enough at volume I want) or sounds anemic.

 

[Thedog]

So I tried the test with a "soundless" audio source. I heard about this source: "23 Seconds of Silence, by Wilco, and....nothing!
I still don't hear anything. Regarding these micro noises, I understood that they mainly came from the GPU, however mine and its fans only activate for AAA games. Maybe when I play this class of games, I will hear these famous noises? I haven't had the chance to experience it.
That said, as said previously, I noticed that the subject of this ALC 1220 was discussed on your forum and a certain "Offler" did a fairly detailed test.

Realtek ALC1220 - a look on PC sound

If you purchased new desktop PC in last 3-4 years you probably have one of those on your motherboard. Since I spent few last weeks trying to make it work as best I could, here are few findings: 1. Technical data about the chip were already summarized here...

www.audiosciencereview.com

So I guess he's right, that we would hear "micro noises". I wouldn't want to question his work, this person is most certainly right.
As for the "ASIO routing", I was not able to carry out this test, I am sorry (I install the program on my win11 and nothing appears..idk).

So I'm going to get myself a DAC , that actually suits me. That said, unless I am hearing impaired, I find that the Realtek ALC 1220 does very well and that the difference with the external amps is by deduction quite subtle!

I THANK YOU ALL FOR RESPONDING TO MY POST

Mbison: I have a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Wifi Pro with an ALC1220-VB. It drives my HD-650s perfectly fine. I can't tell any difference in sound quality between using a Topping E30 ii/Schitt Heretic combo vs. the direct from motherboard.

 

[JoetheLion]

I was pleasantly surprised by the headphone output on my Apple IMac 24, the sound quality was really really good.

A German magazine has tested the new iMac (M3), including the headphone output: "What is new here is the support of high-impedance headphones, as with the other M3 Macs. The already good values at the level of a 24-bit converter (...) were even better with headphones with a higher resistance: the dynamic range increased from 115 to 125 decibels, the output voltage rose from 1.0 to 3.0 volts."

 

[kestrel4]

The difference is with a external amp you can have more power output driving your headphones. The difference in DACs will be mostly inaudible because they have good enough specs to not be detectable by the human ear. As a example I went from a ASUS motherboard with the ALC4080 with Savitech SV3H712 amplifier to a JDS Labs ATOM DAC+ and a Schitt Heresy headphone amp. The difference is very noticeable but that is attributed to the high power output of the headphone amp. The audio is dead silent. No hiss and stuff when listening to audio. When no audio is playing the unit is in mute mode and is dead silent.

~600 Ohms is not the difficult to drive zone it is when the impedance dips down to ~15 Ohms or lower that it becomes a very difficult load.

Wow! That is really valuable advice. You're saying it is the extra power, not the superior DAC that makes the difference! All audiophile-pundits insist on the need to spend hundreds on a DAC/Amp to drive a 300 ohm headphone, not just an amp. Maybe I can now more confidently buy the headphones I've coveted for so long...
(I don't understand the statement that low resistance phones are harder to drive. Do ultea-low impedance devices present a special problem.)
Very many thanks for researching this.

 

[dlaloum]

Wow! That is really valuable advice. You're saying it is the extra power, not the superior DAC that makes the difference! All audiophile-pundits insist on the need to spend hundreds on a DAC/Amp to drive a 300 ohm headphone, not just an amp. Maybe I can now more confidently buy the headphones I've coveted for so long...
(I don't understand the statement that low resistance phones are harder to drive. Do ultea-low impedance devices present a special problem.)
Very many thanks for researching this.

Low impedance speakers/headphones, require heaps more current, for the same voltage.

Many amps just don't have the power supply to feed a current hog - others will have the power supply, but won't be able to handle the additional heat generated (more current through circuits = more heat....)

So yes, often the real torture test for an amp, is low impedance loads - and due to the differing ways in which different amp topologies misbehave when they reach their current constraints, it can sound very different between different amps. - Unlike clipping on voltage - which is a very ugly harsh and obvious sound, clipping on current is much more subtle, it can affect soundstage, midrange detail and other areas, while still sounding like it isn't "clipping".

With todays equipment and engineering, all amps sound the same, until and unless they are driven outside of their performance envelope.... when you have amp tests that claim differences between amps, in most cases it is either the lack of a blind test generating the difference, or an impedance load handling difference - and in the latter case, the amps will sound the same on easy loads (high impedance) and different on difficult loads...

 

[kestrel4]

!thanks
That's an impressive and informative explanation. And it makes me want to study this thing in more depth.