Worth upgrading my IDT High Definition Audio CODEC?

Almost any on-board sound will be inferior to even a budget external dac/amp.  My HP laptop has a "High Definition" sound chip from Conexant, and while it's not bad it's no match for my Total Bithead.  A  lot depends on how easy the headphones are to drive.

Dh-

Ask yourself a couple of questions:

What am I listening to?  Mp3’s?, CD’s?, flac files?

An HD TV doesn’t make a lot of difference unless you’re watching an HD channel.

An external amp/dac won’t make 128k mp3’s jaw dropping.

Are the phones I’m getting both low ohm and highly efficient?

The more inefficient your phones, the more need for an amp/dac.

When you say ‘nice’ headphones, you mean cost more money, nice to look at, nice and easy to drive?

How big is your enjoyment of music and how big is your wallet?

Based on your answers to above 2 questions, you may want to slow and go or slash and burn.

Get a Total Bithead for a good mobile solution or save for a desktop badboy.

In any event, I would always keep my IDT codecs upgraded to the latest version available online.

The ATH-M50s are much better than the HD280s in my opinion.  Haven't heard the Denons so I can't comment on those.

The Total Bithead is a USB external DAC/Amp.  It's been around awhile, a couple things it has that may give it an advantage over some others are:

1.  Two headphone jacks, so two people can listen at the same time (I bring it along when my wife and I are travelling).

2.  Low/High gain switch so it is more flexible with headphones of various efficiency.

It also has a crossfeed circuit (can be switched on and off) than can help make some older stereo recordings with hard panning between channels a little less fatiguing to listen to.  And it can also be used with batteries as a portable amp from a DAP's headphone or line out.

There is no shortage of different external DAC/Amps out there.

I have

- Shure 840

- IDT High definition onboard laptop sound card (HP probook 4520s)

- Xiang Pheng Dac-01A (connected via USB, but powered separatly)

- SMSL SAD-01 (connected via USB, but powered separatly)

Listen only flac files, using foobar (WASAPI mode).

You would't believe it, but the onboard one is actually my prefered one. Surely the bass are much better on the DAC-01A. However, the clarity on the voices is much better on the onboard one (i.e. much easier to understand the lyrics of what the person is signing.

I am very surprised, because people always say that onboard is very poor (which makes sense to me since there are many inteference and they probably use a cheap D/A chipset).

Is the Shure 840 considered easy to drive?

BTW - The Dac-01A (as already commented by many) is a great peace for the price. I've got it hooked up with a Yaqin 10L (an amazing piece full stop).

Serge

Any hardware device that's worse than onboard audio chips in some regard is certainly to be avoided. Onboard audio is just about awful, there aren't many things worse than that. Although, it's mainly about implementation, since audio is virtually always an afterthought.

Even USB dongles like Creative X-Fi Go and Asus Xonar U3 outperform just about any onboard audio chip, nevermind higher quality DACs.

Roller, I have to admit that you make a point. 

I did some additional tests on different songs. The DAC-01A is obviously a lot more detailed (I could hear part of the song that I didn't know were there with the IDT). So I tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that I liked about the IDT. I think it is that the separation between the voice and the music is pretty clear (which might be because it does not play all the music and is much stronger in the mid range than in the lows and highs). On the other side, on the DAC, the music is kind of obstructing the voice (both with headphone and speakers (Wharfedale Pacific PI-10)). 

This is somehow coming back to a problem that I have had for years: when I watch movies, if I use the IDH and headphones, I don't need subtitles, whereas if I sure DAC + Tube amp + Speakers, I often do. Moreover, one must know how I already heavily tweak the sound to amplify the voice (in AC3filter, I increase the centre channel and use the DRC).

Again, this is not related with sound quality. I bet that if I could listen to the movie on my phone, the voices would probably be pretty clear (phone are made for voice...). 

I really which I could make my system better at playing these damn dialogues.... Any advice welcome.

Serge

Are you willing to upgrade your audio hardware?

Surely so. 

I am doing a lot of research to find out what is the weakest link in the system. I can only guess it is the speakers. I read somewhere that having 3 way speakers help having clearer voice because you have a separate driver for the mids. Would you agree with that?

Again today I listen with the Shure 840 and compare with the speaker. It really depends on the song. I tried with Shakira: The one.  With the shure 840, I could almost write the lirics, while on the speakers they were a lot less clear.

Serge

Speakers isn't my area, but separate speakers for different areas of the frequency range do have improved clarity over single speaker solutions.

I still think if your source components were of higher quality, you would have much higher sound quality, on both speakers and headphones alike.