sure if you have decent headphone + headphone amplifier its ofc way better than the usual onboard sound. but for any 0815 2.1 or 5.1 device there is in most cases no hearable difference, and if you use digital outputs ofc doenst matter at all cause the soundcard doesnt do shit to the signal
Onboard is great nowadays. There is no low noise and everything is as clear without any problems usually.
I use fiio e10k. To my ears it sounds about the same as onboard but gives me great controls over volume right there on my desk with a physical knob and can drive up to 600ohm headphones.
There can be some popping or delay with usb dac's in windows 10 though. There is usually a small "pop" when music starts or stops but no issues while it's playing or when playing a game. Overall I do not think it is super worth it if You use up to 60ohm headphones and do not need volume controls with a knob.
Onboard is seriously good stuff nowadays. Sometimes even shielded although it's mostly marketing because mine is not even shielded and still does not capture any electrostatic noise or cpu workload etc. I've not used it in 3 years but did little testing recently and it's ok.
The WOW! factor You are experiencing comes from either greater volume or default enabled sound enhancements. Could be Your realtek had some shit "enhancements" also enabled and sounded worse than it should. But seeing You have dt990 250ohm is pointing at gain(volume) answer. For headphone like that, amplifier is A MUST so gratz for finally getting one (although more expensive than it could be).
Anyway - I don't think I will ever correctly understand why some headphones have very high resistance... I know it's to reduce low noise and eliminate unwanted sounds but it's just not true. I've used many many 32 ohm or 60ohm headphones and there was never any noise (except when running from xbox 360 with amplifier or old realtek from 2005(before realtek HD era)).
The high impedance headphones I've used like sennheiser or beyerdynamics sounded just the same (aside form their different sound signatures). It's definitely bullshit and another audiophile crap invented to make some $.
After years and years of owning different headphones I've settled with most unsuspecting one - Koss Porta Pro. This little cheap rickety shit is the best sounding headphones I've ever had lol. 50$ and it's the comfiest (forget about wearing it! no sweat!), most open, best sounding headphone to me. And the amount of bass this delivers is surprising. The closest one I've heard was hd600. Also a very comfortable headphone but many times more expensive and with high impedance for whatever reason. It's this thing taken for granted but not really important in normal consumer environment. Maybe impedance matters more in a studio. dunno
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
You are probably most definitely right Crocker , but this ASUS board has the worst sound I have ever heard from a MB, now that is most probably due to the terrible drivers and software (Sonic Studio), and no amount of tweaking I done made it sound right, so I guess it is like 'night & day' for me To be honest, I never liked the sound stage on the HD598's anyway, that, and the lack of oomph in the cans, probably creates the WOW! factor for me
Sonic audio? No wonder it was shit. Realtek at least took years to not sound terrible
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
yeah yeah, just waiting for the guy with golden 20k usd cables to pop in and say his system is better then yours, its all balony and dick measuring
i had freaking soundstorm on my motherboard almost two decades ago, and then they stopped making it cause it was too good lol ... , i spit in creatives face, biggest scam company in hardware, deliberatly not releasing new drivers for new operating systems for their older cards, fuck them and their overpriced junk and that farce they call 'eax'. absolutly nothing happened in 20 years of them releasing cards, all marketing balony . i had ram on my soundcard in 1998 already... , its like time stood still for 20 years in soundcards
My next rig will probably be Topping DX7S. Fully balanced, solid DAC even it’s not as good as Topping D50. Im thinking of replacing my HD650s with Monolith 1060C with modded opened cans
Ryzen 7 9800X3D PBO ~-26/+200 | Freezer III 360 A-RGB | Strix X670E-F WiFi | Zotac RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO | Fury Beast 64GB (2x 32GB) DDR5 5600MHz C40 @ 6000MHz C28 | 970 EVO Plus 2 TB | 38GN950-B | S.M.S.L RAW-MDA1 & HiFiMAN Arya Organic | Lancool III Snow White + 4x be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 140mm | RM1000x (2021) Gold | G Pro X SUPERLIGHT 2 & POWERPLAY | Win 11 Pro | Logitech MX MECHANICAL
I find this review very fitting every time a discussion about the difference of DACs happens. The biggest difference has always been:
Speakers > AMP / Source file quality > Everything else. In that order . Most of everything else is subjective audiophile placebo effects and gain differences.
I personally went through that placebo effect a few months ago when I changed my mobo to a Z370 and had no space for my XonarD1 on it. My first reaction was that my audio sounded total shit compared to the Xonar and the difference was night and day. I even bought myself a used Xonar D2 PCIe card and proceeded to compare it with my integrated alc1220. At first I heard some differences and then found out that there was an option to boost the gains on the alc1220. After a night of blind tests, it turned out that there was no audible difference (to me at least) whatsoever on my bookshelves and my headphones. I even assembled an older configuration to verify that there was no difference with my old XonarD1 and guess what, same shit between all three of them...
I plan to do some blind tests with a couple of audiophile friends and their cans next week to see if any of them will find a difference between the 3 cards.
One reason why I dont suggest old fashioned sound cards is due that most of them have crap drivers which are usually discontinues after a couple of years. (Even a damn NVIDIA & AMD can keep up) I had Auzentech HomeTheater HD sound card (250€) and it was useless when Auzentech was closong to it’s bankruptcy. 3rd party drivers are fine but definitely not something you can rely on for years.
Comparing sounds is very subjective as many of us have very different hearing senses.
My suggestion is a USB DAC AMP combo with no drivers required, no DSD/D bullshit and you’re good for years.
If you want some 7.1 effects tey Sennheiser’s SGX 1000.
Ryzen 7 9800X3D PBO ~-26/+200 | Freezer III 360 A-RGB | Strix X670E-F WiFi | Zotac RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO | Fury Beast 64GB (2x 32GB) DDR5 5600MHz C40 @ 6000MHz C28 | 970 EVO Plus 2 TB | 38GN950-B | S.M.S.L RAW-MDA1 & HiFiMAN Arya Organic | Lancool III Snow White + 4x be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 140mm | RM1000x (2021) Gold | G Pro X SUPERLIGHT 2 & POWERPLAY | Win 11 Pro | Logitech MX MECHANICAL
In my experience the onboard + amp (E10K) combo didn't quite cut it.
It was good enough, but coming off Asus Essence ST, I could easily tell that it was different - something was lacking. The most obvious was that it didn't quite have the same punch - it was lacking the "oomph" or the "roar" I got used to and no amount of volume or gain could get it there.
I feel that these days it really comes down to such subtleties that it's a question of what it's really worth to you. Since I already listened and got used to the "better" thing I absolutely wanted it back.
My options were somewhat limited in general and by the fact that I didn't want a separate DAC and amp. It appeares that there aren't that many combo devices within a reasonable price range that I could get my hands on that can drive HD 600-s.
In my experience the onboard + amp (E10K) combo didn't quite cut it.
It was good enough, but coming off Asus Essence ST, I could easily tell that it was different - something was lacking. The most obvious was that it didn't quite have the same punch - it was lacking the "oomph" or the "roar" I got used to and no amount of volume or gain could get it there.
I feel that these days it really comes down to such subtleties that it's a question of what it's really worth to you. Since I already listened and got used to the "better" thing I absolutely wanted it back.
My options were somewhat limited in general and by the fact that I didn't want a separate DAC and amp. It appeares that there aren't that many combo devices within a reasonable price range that I could get my hands on that can drive HD 600-s.
I have a Jotunheim now. No Ragrets!
e10k is not an amp. IT's DAC + AMP. If You are using it, then onboard does not matter and should be disabled.
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
In my experience the onboard + amp (E10K) combo didn't quite cut it.
It was good enough, but coming off Asus Essence ST, I could easily tell that it was different - something was lacking. The most obvious was that it didn't quite have the same punch - it was lacking the "oomph" or the "roar" I got used to and no amount of volume or gain could get it there.
I feel that these days it really comes down to such subtleties that it's a question of what it's really worth to you. Since I already listened and got used to the "better" thing I absolutely wanted it back.
My options were somewhat limited in general and by the fact that I didn't want a separate DAC and amp. It appeares that there aren't that many combo devices within a reasonable price range that I could get my hands on that can drive HD 600-s.
I have a Jotunheim now. No Ragrets!
e10k is not an amp. IT's DAC + AMP. If You are using it, then onboard does not matter and should be disabled.
Ahh right. so that will only make onboard imperfections louder
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
Well, my opinion on DACs stands on the same line as the article I mentioned. Amps are a whole different beast, I could hear audible differences between the few I've blind tested. I'm talking about Stereo amps and receivers, not portable stuff.
If you guys want/care I'll share my experiment with my couple of friends and their headphones next week. It would be a blind test between Xonar D1, D2x and ALC 1220 everything will be driven by the same amp.
In order for comparison like that to be fair, You would have to use max 60ohm headphones, so even realtek have fair chance.
Ofc Your friends would hear the difference if You played them something on 600ohm headphones on realtek and then xonar with 3rd gain mode
I really liked my xonar DG and even though it was playing just the same as realtek or my e10k, the built in amp was nice so it had this as main advantage over realtek. Also the dolby headphone was very impressive feature in some games. In most it just distorted the sound too much but in few it was great
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
Soundcards are so last season but the Xonar U7 I have is also trash compared to the SMSL M2 it replaced. Overpriced as fuck and barely adequate to run these AKG Q701s.
In order for comparison like that to be fair, You would have to use max 60ohm headphones, so even realtek have fair chance.
Ofc Your friends would hear the difference if You played them something on 600ohm headphones on realtek and then xonar with 3rd gain mode
I really liked my xonar DG and even though it was playing just the same as realtek or my e10k, the built in amp was nice so it had this as main advantage over realtek. Also the dolby headphone was very impressive feature in some games. In most it just distorted the sound too much but in few it was great
As he said, he will be driving them through the same amp. Provided the amp has enough range (in terms of power output), one just needs to try and match the volumes/gains for a fair comparison.
Soundcards are so last season but the Xonar U7 I have is also trash compared to the SMSL M2 it replaced. Overpriced as fuck and barely adequate to run these AKG Q701s.
Imo the only reason to get a sound card is to either toy with Dolby headphone or other surround tech (if it's not just available in windows already I don't know) or have better volume controls
3080, ps5, lg oled
Sin317-"im 31 years old and still surprised at how much shit comes out of my ass actually ..."
SteamDRM-"Call of Duty is the symbol of the true perfection in every aspect. Call of Duty games are like Mozart's/Beethoven's symphonies"
deadpoetic-"are you new to the cyberspace?"
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, fuckin WOW!!
, but this ASUS board has the worst sound I have ever heard from a MB, now that is most probably due to the terrible drivers and software (Sonic Studio), and no amount of tweaking I done made it sound right, so I guess it is like 'night & day' for me 
bullshit and you’re good for years.
