[Pete7]

Well it seems I'm pretty much covered in the portable amp department, so I'm looking at getting a decent set-up for my desk. I'm leaning towards a HeadRoom Desktop w/ Home Module and DAC. I'm curious about the DAC option, whether or not I need to get a new sound card. I've heard that a crappy sound card can affect the sound of the DAC using the USB. I've got a Creative Audigy 2ZS, from what I've read on Head-Fi- pretty crappy. Is this something I need to worry about? Wouldn't it be better to get an Emu404 and use the optical or co-axial out from that instead of the USB? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[hardbop]

That's sort of doubling up on the DAC duties.

The Portable Desktop Amp, with DAC, will allow you to connect to the computer via USB cable. Therefore, the internal sound card is bypassed altogether and the Portable Desktop Amp (with DAC) essentially becomes and external soundcard itself.

The Emu404 sound card has it's own DAC chip and does not require an external DAC. So it's either a Desktop Amp, with DAC, or an Emu404 sound card with a Desktop Amp, without DAC.



I am currently using a Bithead, which bypasses my Audigy 2 ZS when used in conjunction with my computer.

 

[Pete7]

So the Audigy won't have any effect on what's going in to the DAC then, right? Great. What about the equalization controls of the sound card, is this still available, or negated? Sorry about the dumb questions, I am DAC illiterate. Also, is it possible to use the DAC with speakers?

 

[MikeW]

You can also run SPDIF output from your soundcard to the DAC. Instead of USB. This has some advantages. Gaming is one of them, im fairly certain USB Dacs make aweful, or possibly don't work at all as gaming sound cards. With SPDIF >> DAC >> AMP >> PHONES, you get all of the sound processing benefits of a soundcard as well as the benefits of a dac. The other issue is USB Dac's only support 16 bit resolution, I nottice a signifigant quality increase when I Jump to 24bit on my soundcard, though im not sure this comparison is directly comparable to DACS, 24bit on my soundcard might not sound any better then 16 bit on a good DAC, i don't honestly know, but I do know that 16bit only support is a turn off for me, so whatever dac I buy will run on SPDIF (Digital out, also known as Coax and Optical).

To give an example, in my situation if I had the MicroDAC i could use my soundcards Digital out and i'd gain all the benefits of said soundcard for gaming (EAX, DXsound support, OpenAL, eq's etc). I'd also be able to playback at 24 bit resolution.

If i had the same DAC hooked up by USB it IS the soundcard, therefore none of my soundcards features would work for it.

Hope this clears it up for you, basically if your a non-gamer i'd go 0404 and the dac, just for 24 bit resolution support.

If your a gamer, consider X-fi

edit: USB supposedly has less "Jitter" then optical, so I suppose an argument could be made that less jitter is better then 24 bit support. I kinda doubt it though

 

[Pete7]

Thanks for all the great info. Looks like its at least EMU 404; I really don't know how great the DAC would be for me unless I can use the equalizer function, plus I'm sure the 24-bit is a big improvement. As far as gaming goes- I am a gamer, just not a PC gamer. X-boxer. Could never get used to the keyboard and mouse thing.

 

[MikeW]

omg Keyboard and mouse so ownz the heck outta goofy controllers. Especially with RTS and FPS