Do i need a DAC?

What is your current source?

No, you don't need a DAC. I would only expect marginal improvements at this price point.

However, if you still want to upgrade, HRT makes a good product or you could try a a cheap semi pro sound card.

I would take a look at the uDAC-2 as well, it has both headphone and preamp outputs and will go portable easily with your laptop.

So the only way you listen to your music is through your laptop? If so, a DAC would improve your sound quality. Even a $100 uDAC sounds better than a noisy laptop onboard card. 

More sensible would be to just go the portable route. Buy a Sansa Fuze/Clip+ for $50 and use that instead of your laptop to listen to music. In my opinion the Sansa Fuze sounds as good as a $100 DAC. Watching movies (compressed audio) and Youtube stuff will be fine with just the onboard card. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by justie 

i'm currently using my crappy acer laptop with its onboard sound card..lol

100% get a dac, laptop soundcards are the worst mine just sounded like crap and it was a mid-high end laptop aswell with a 24bit realtek hd card, i've never heard such a horrible sound bass was awful and muddy not much midrange and harsh treble, you don't have to spend hundreds to get a decent dac though, I got a fiio E7 for £56 and there is such huge a difference it's worth every penny, i would recommend you look at getting the fiio E7 or nuforce udac 2 , both are cheap but the fiio doubles as a headphone amp, has bass control and a neutral sound, the udac has 24bit processing, more and digital outputs but has a coloured sound, both are reasonable priced and will provide a huge upgraded. 

Yup, even so you don't need a DAC, I'm listening right now at the onboard chip of the Macbook Pro, and do not feel the need to immediately switch to m external DAC.

Be aware that the aspect of the laptop, which is probably not that polished , may subconsciously influence your judgment of its sound.

Order of importance for sound quality:

1. Quality of mixing and mastering of the musical material.

2. Transducers headphone or loudspeakers and room acoustics if you are using loudspeakers.

3. Amp

4. DAC
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by justie 

i'm currently using my crappy acer laptop with its onboard sound card..lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by khaos974 

 

1. Quality of mixing and mastering of the musical material.

2. Transducers headphone or loudspeakers and room acoustics if you are using loudspeakers.

3. Amp

4. DAC
 

I would disagree ,

1. Quality of mixing and mastering of the musical material.

2. DAC

3. Amp

4. Speakers/headphones

If your source is crap, then even the best headphones and speakers will still sound crap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justie 

thnx for all ur suggestions guys looking at the E7 and udac 2 now..so a musiland 02 will be overkill in my situation? do these both function mainly as headphone amps or DACs? or does it not matter as long as it has the dac function for my usage? btw, do these work for my speakers? or do my speakers not need them? sry im new to this so im probably askign alot of dumb questions ><

The uDac has two outputs, RCAs for your  speakers, and a headphone jack for your headphones so you can have them both hooked up at the same time. The E7 has the advantage of being suitable for a portable DAP with it's rechargeable battery, but the uDac has a better DAC in it (and runs off USB power).

No name mp3 player -> beta22 -> HD800 or an another good pair of cans sounds a lot better than
MSB Diamond DAC -> beta22 -> ibuds.

To be more accurate, My opinion is that most digital sources, including cheap mp3 players, computer outs, provided that they have no glaring issues, have reached the point where they are not crap anymore. On the other hand, speakers and by extension headphones often have often have obvious issues, such as muddy bass, absence of mids... even the expensive ones.

Another way to put it is that when switching gear, I hear a bigger difference when switching transducers than when switching digital sources.

If you feel like continuing the discussion, use PM, we have been derailing this thread enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRG1990 

I would disagree ,

 

1. Quality of mixing and mastering of the musical material.

2. DAC

3. Amp

4. Speakers/headphones

 

If your source is crap, then even the best headphones and speakers will still sound crap.

I disagree

1. Quality of mixing and mastering of the musical material.

2. Dac/Headphones

3. AMP if needed.

Without a good source headphones will sound bad, without good headphones a good source will sound bad.  But once you have a good source its all about headphones since source upgrades becoming less and less distinct.

Imo though a so/so source with good headphones will sound better than bad headphones with an awesome source.  Though neither are really optimal... the good headphones will probably make you upgrade your source anyway rather than gimping that expensive dac you got with headphones that sound like trash.

Actually its hard to list importance as they all have different functions.  If your headphones require an amp than they are probably more important than the source itself.  It can go in so many ways

With headphones I was able to easily here the difference in quality between onboard and my DAC (NuForce uDAC-2) I never knew the onboard was so bad until I heard the difference. 

You of course cant tell on the laptops built in speakers, and probably not most other basic speakers, but with headphones and higher end speaker setups its a big difference.

My laptop is the Asus G73, its top of the line and brand new so it has the latest & greatest for onboard audio.

Seems to me the uDAC-2 is a good fit for your needs, it can handle the DAC feature you need via its pre-amp out, and it can drive your headphones via its internal amp to give you much better quality than you will get directly from your macbook.