[SethGG]

I'm currently using a Xonar DGX soundcard in combination with a Sennheiser PC 360 headset.

1. Will I notice an improvement in sound quality when I upgrade to an Audioquest DragonFly v1.2 usb dac?

2. Will I be able to use my motherboard (or soundcard) microphone port in combination with the Audioquest DragonFly v1.2? (so headphone jack in DragonFly and microphone jack in mobo)

Thanks in advance for any help you guys are able to provide.

 

[Head Injury]

  I'm currently using a Xonar DGX soundcard in combination with a Sennheiser PC 360 headset.

1. Will I notice an improvement in sound quality when I upgrade to an Audioquest DragonFly v1.2 usb dac?

2. Will I be able to use my motherboard (or soundcard) microphone port in combination with the Audioquest DragonFly v1.2? (so headphone jack in DragonFly and microphone jack in mobo)

Thanks in advance for any help you guys are able to provide.

1. Well...maybe. Since the DGX is inside the computer, a fairly hostile environment, it could pick up noise from the other electronics. If you can't hear any noise when playing music, scrolling web pages, etc. don't worry about it. The DGX will also probably have a 10 ohm output impedance like a lot of other Asus components. AFAIK the PC360 is based on the HD598 driver which will get a mid-bass boost of a dB or so with that output impedance, plus extra bass distortion. The DragonFly shouldn't have either of these problems, but it's probably not going to improve much else, and you won't have access to all of the sound card's Dolby effects.
 
2. Yes, as long as you have a separate cord for the headphones and for the microphone obviously. Your computer is going to have two separate devices, an output and input.

 

[billybob_jcv]

Yes, in Windows you should be able to select the playback device separately from the recording device.

I can't comment on the soundcard, except to say that I always thought the Asus Xonar was considered pretty good. They both have 24bit/96KHz DAC chips. The Asus uses a Cmedia, the Audioquest uses an ESS. You do realize that using the external DAC also means that you are no longer going to have access to any of the Xonar sound processing, right? The Audioquest will become your playback device for all sounds (when it is selected).

If you really want to change the quality of the sound you hear, you will typically get a more significant change from different headphones than from a different DAC/amp.