As I was also exploring this issue of external DAC quality gain, I have also discovered that it is also much more convenient to separate music only output from system sounds (if you really need them). Btw, my laptop output is totally quiet and also handles my low impendance cans very well but I...

Thank you guys for presenting your arguments, I've been studying this matter since then and I must admit that I finally chose to go Graphicism's way to which also Shike agreed to - to get off the onboard sound ASAP. Now I'm looking for some usb dac with headphone amp and if I get a chance to...

I received an email from the manufacturer today. Here it is: Thank you for your interest of our DACs products. The main chip is CS4344. Below is the detail specification for your reference. DACs Digital Analog Converter Upsampling : 32k – 192k Exemplary resolution to –100dB Frequency...

Does anyone know anything about this usb-dac? Is it worth it's price?

Thank you all for your feedback. I think I'll stay with my original idea to spend at least 75% on new headphones because I think there's the biggest gain and get myself $50 usb dac just to eliminate onboard audio. And after that I need to listen and listen....

Well, this is my current listening setup: notebook HP NX7400/desktop HP DX7400 as transport for mostly flac audio, foobar2k, onboard audio and very cheap philips shp2000 headphones. I listen to rock/jazz/classical mostly @work and sometimes @home. I didn't notice any noise or hiss or hum playing...

Is it really noise the only issue with onboard audio? For example, I'm using onboard audio on my HP NX7400 notebook at home and on HP DX7400 desktop at work and I can't hear any noise or hum or hiss or anything on 100% volume. Total silence. I only hear noise from older tape mastered records. I...