[Rackhour]

It is accepted (at least here and possibly at other headphone enthusiast forums like /r/headphones) that a headphone source can drastically affect a headphone’s sound quality.

Can the same be said about external dedicated DACs? Is it possible for a DAC to output different sound based on the PC motherboard it is connected to?

 

[sajunky]

PC is typically a large source of ground loops. When combined with some HiFi rig that don't observe design rules can make it even worse. Can you describe your setup?

 

[Rackhour]

PC is typically a large source of ground loops. When combined with some HiFi rig that don't observe design rules can make it even worse. Can you describe your setup?

Oh, this is more of a theoretical question.

I don’t own a dedicated DAC yet, but a coworker mentioned that he was looking into a couple, and that made me wonder whether music would sound different from his PC compared to my PC assuming I play the same music files as part of test driving.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

The USB driver and how well the USB ports are implemented is the technical issue. Good DACs should be able to clean up crappy USB input to some degree. Otherwise, you can go down the rabbit hole of reclocking if you have time and money. In theory, this is the silver bullet that makes the USB issue go away.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

When I was still using an elderly Lenovo T400 series, I had god awful dropouts, pings and other nastiness being fed to my external DAC (at the time, it was a Schiit Modi Multibit [without an EITR de-crapifier]). I junked that laptop and went with a Chromebook. Once I was able to feed my DAC a reliable signal via WiFi, my audio experience improved dramatically. I suspect the following items within my Chromebook provided a cleaner digital signal via its USB 3.0 port:
- solid-state harddrive.
- no fan... or perhaps more accurately, more efficient passive cooling within my Acer Chromebook 15.
- more robust wireless circuitry.

My 2 cents...

 

[Rackhour]

When I was still using an elderly Lenovo T400 series, I had god awful dropouts, pings and other nastiness being fed to my external DAC (at the time, it was a Schiit Modi Multibit [without an EITR de-crapifier]). I junked that laptop and went with a Chromebook. Once I was able to feed my DAC a reliable signal via WiFi, my audio experience improved dramatically. I suspect the following items within my Chromebook provided a cleaner digital signal via its USB 3.0 port:
- solid-state harddrive.
- no fan... or perhaps more accurately, more efficient passive cooling within my Acer Chromebook 15.
- more robust wireless circuitry.

My 2 cents...

Wait, was the DAC wired or wireless? Sorry, I didn't quite fully understand your reply.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Wait, was the DAC wired or wireless? Sorry, I didn't quite fully understand your reply.

It was a wired, external DAC. The DAC had its own power supply.

 

[Thenewguy007]

PC board won't matter, but the USB port will.

Getting a dedicated USB bridge with a better clock & most importantly, a option to power them seperately from your PC's power supply will add sonic benefits.

Pink Faun & Jcat sells them
https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/content/12-bridges
https://jcat.eu/product/usb-card-xe/

 

[sajunky]

For this price I would rather invest in DI-20. Or pickup model 2021 Audio GD DAC which has the same interface with bidirectional isolator.

 

[audioandy]

No, anything sending data over USB is just sending zeroes and ones. They are the same zeroes and ones sent by any source device. There's nothing magical about the signal, and USB is a fully solved problem that doesn't need anything special to work perfectly. A 20 year old USB 1.0 garbage device will send a perfect data stream to a DAC. If you want you can buy the useless (and fortunately discontinued) "Schitt Decrapifier" which is supposed to polish all of those zeroes and ones to be squeaky clean.

 

[sajunky]

No, anything sending data over USB is just sending zeroes and ones. They are the same zeroes and ones sent by any source device. There's nothing magical about the signal, and USB is a fully solved problem that doesn't need anything special to work perfectly. A 20 year old USB 1.0 garbage device will send a perfect data stream to a DAC. If you want you can buy the useless (and fortunately discontinued) "Schitt Decrapifier" which is supposed to polish all of those zeroes and ones to be squeaky clean.

Aha. It can be even measured, but you do reject all facts in favour of your immagination. Tell us why there are traces of 50Hz and 60Hz in a TotalDAC test? Did't it come with a stream of zeros and ones. Read the entire thread, it is educational.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...and-measurements-of-totaldac-d1-six-dac.8192/

 

[audioandy]

Aha. It can be even measured, but you do reject all facts in favour of your immagination. Tell us why there are traces of 50Hz and 60Hz in a TotalDAC test? Did't it come with a stream of zeros and ones. Read the entire thread, it is educational.

Can you expand on this? I don't understand what frequencies introduced by the DAC have to do with the data source, such as the motherboard, that the DAC plugs in to over USB, and sends zeroes and ones to the DAC. Also forgive me if the answer is buried somewhere in a 90 page thread, I don't want to hunt and peck through every reply.

 

[pofofo]

Dont know if its a bad implementation on my MB, but I heard difference between different USB ports, its only different in levels of noise though, and that was before I did a grounding mod to my Bottlehead SEX. It most likely came from my Grace SDAC, which struggles with some kind of noise/grounding issue.

 

[mikem1062]

No, anything sending data over USB is just sending zeroes and ones. They are the same zeroes and ones sent by any source device. There's nothing magical about the signal, and USB is a fully solved problem that doesn't need anything special to work perfectly. A 20 year old USB 1.0 garbage device will send a perfect data stream to a DAC. If you want you can buy the useless (and fortunately discontinued) "Schitt Decrapifier" which is supposed to polish all of those zeroes and ones to be squeaky clean.

So you're saying that all digital sources/streamers will sound the same? After all, isn't it the same digital file or stream? Or maybe there's more than just the digital data making it's way to the DAC?

 

[audioandy]

So you're saying that all digital sources/streamers will sound the same? After all, isn't it the same digital file or stream? Or maybe there's more than just the digital data making it's way to the DAC?

Yes, all digital sources sending USB signal downstream to a DAC will sound the same regardless of the source. A DAC takes in zeroes and ones encoded in a USB signal as a high and low voltage, and derives meaning from that data. The zeroes and ones don't change in quality based on upstream sender, it's the same data. USB has very lower error rates per the specification. I don't know about other connection types, but I would be surprised if there were significant differences for a sending device.