[longphant]

I have the Audio Technica ATH-M50's. 
 
I have a Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard. It's on-board audio is "VIA VT2021 codec". People told me that external DAC's are always good, so I went out and bought "Focusrite - VRM Box USB Headphone Monitoring DAC" for $100. 
 
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/Audio-Codec-Comparison-Table/520
If you search for "VT2021", you'll see that my audio card has the highest numbers for the various specs. I will list them below:
Channels: 7.1+2
Input resolution: 24-bit
Output resolution: 24-bit
Input max. sampling rate: 192 Khz
Output max. sampling rate: 192 Khz
Input SNR: 100 dB
Output SNR: 110dB
 
When I listen to flac music with my ATH-M50's, I do not hear much of a difference between the "Focusrite - VRM Box USB Headphone Monitoring DAC" and just plugging my headphones into the on-board sound card. Am I doing something wrong or is my on-board audio card just really good?

 

[wafflezz]

That's normal. DACs can *sometimes* be considered a placebo. You expect a change therefore you hear one. Since your soundcard transcodes to 24 bit the signal probably wouldn't distort in any way to audible levels. Congratulations, you have transparent sound.

 

[laon]

You're using M50, that's to be expected, just sell the dac. Oh and the idea that just by having "24 bit" dac mean it will deliver perfect analog signal is laughable, it is not that simple.

 

[wafflezz]

laon. Of course. nothing is perfect. If you have 10 Dacs lined up transcoding the same signal in 24 bit, it will sound like garbage. Unless you have that ridiculous looking 30k+ "diamond" dac lined up 10 times(which might actually be half decent). But one 24 bit analog transcoding? It's most likely not going to distort past audible levels. To the human ear...that's transparency.

 

[longphant]

I've heard of the FiiO E17 being a good USB DAC (and I think better than the one I have now). So you're telling me that with the ATH-M50's and my current on-board sound card, there is no way I can do better? If I were to buy $500 headphones, it could get better?

 

[wafflezz]

I'm tired so I'll make this quick. An amp might make more of a difference than a good DAC. The m50 can need an extra bit of juice to get their full sound potential, even though they sound incredible without it. The reason why I preferred my e7 over my onboard more was because of that extra punch of the amp. Even then, the difference was minor. 

 

[laon]

Quote:

 If I were to buy $500 headphones, it could get better?

Potentially, but you don't need to go that high to get more transparent headphone. If your favorite phone can't discern the difference between source then rejoice and enjoy your music without worrying if "it might sound better with x".

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

I've heard of the FiiO E17 being a good USB DAC (and I think better than the one I have now). So you're telling me that with the ATH-M50's and my current on-board sound card, there is no way I can do better? If I were to buy $500 headphones, it could get better?

Could just be this add-on external Focusrite DAC is just not that great.
 
Personally, I would have spent $30 for the Asus Xonar DG sound card.
 
The Audio Technica ATH-A900X should provide better audio quality then the ATH-M50s
Digbuy is selling the ATH-A900X for $155, plus tax & shipping

 

[ZeNmAc]

The difference between dacs is not that much.  It's not that high end dacs make a huge difference, just most of the dacs built into motherboards and phones are just mediocre.  All you need is something decent.  I'm surprised that your onboard is that good.
 
If you can power your headphones nice and loud an amp won't make much of a difference to be honest.  I didn't notice a difference with or without an amp on my m50s.
 
The bottleneck in the audio chain is almost always the actual driver itself.  As long as you have a decent dac and a decent amp (which aren't too expensive) your money is best spent on the headphones themselves.  Even though people like to hate them, the m50's are pretty amazing for the price.  The only reason I got something else was for comfort to be honest (and I still use my m50's almost every day).
 

 

[laon]

Dac can only sounds as good as your amp and headphone. 

 

[149700]

I hope you're not using youtube MP3 rips for your songs.
 
You are using high quality songs right? I've downloaded 1gb mozart and they sound 100x better than a regular mp3, it was unreal. Of course, it also depends on the recording. No use have a nice lossless quality if the original recording isn't very good. 
 
Try getting high quality ones and see if it helps. Though... when I had an m50, a dac didn't help as much as it did for my dt990, but an amp sure did tighten up that bass for the m50. 
 
I hope this helped!