[obobskivich]

Wow lots of info!! Well Coming from the sim racing side of things, a lot of high end wheels and pedal sets suffer from a lot of noise in computers.... I have a feeling most don't really know where it comes from, but it seems many seem to calm it down by taking some extreme grounding measures with their usb connections, often tapping into the USB and grounding it to a copper pole shoved 10 ft into the ground. What is the cause of this? I don't know. But what it tells me is that a computer is a very messy and electrical noisy place. Of course i can be very wrong. I dunno. Electronics are NOT my thing.

Frankly I'm not sure what you're specifically talking about here (like, how would an interface peripheral "suffer from noise" and what would that look like, symptomatically?), but I can tell you the whole "computers is so messy make your sound so bad can't even listen its like nails on a chalkboard you gotta buy the Gobblesnort XXXL BBQ 9000 external interface nothing else will cure your problems" thing is a myth that's been floating around for a few years, and is generally always perpetuated by companies that want to sell USB audio solutions.

Historically, built-in audio (as in, the audio chipset built-in to your motherboard) has had issues with noise ingress from peripherals or internal hardware (like hard drives) but this is generally caused by manufacturing issues (read: the people who designed and built it went cheap and did a half***ed job putting it together) that lets the ground on the analog audio interact with grounds for other devices. This does not mean, however, that the "inside of the computer is an unusable mess" - there are plenty of internal cards that will post up near-flawless (as in, well past audibly transparent) numbers, and many professional audio interfaces are "internal" specifically because USB (and many other external interfaces) can't offer the bandwidth or latency performance needed to make things work. I guess you could summarize this as "cheap stuff is always cheap" but that doesn't sell new hardware...

Really good historical example, Apple took an absolute beating with the PowerPC G4 Power Macs and their onboard audio's noise, but they're absolutely fine with a dedicated soundcard installed in one of their PCI slots. If you're a marketing company though its really easy to go "hear that noise? that noise is because its INSIDE THE COMPUTER, WHICH IS LIKE MORDOR FOR YOUR ELECTRONICS, NOTHING CAN SURVIVE IN THERE, ITS SO BAD!!! YOU NEED OUR NEW PRODUCT THAT FIXES THIS BY BEING EXTERNAL!" and of course it will "fix" the issue - its bypassing the problematic connection. But the reason WHY it fixes the problem is just marketing bunko.

 

[Tim Le]

I think i'll be going for the sennheiser HD6xx on Mass Drop as soon as its available again. I'll pair that with a modmic and get me a Schiit Fulla 2 or a modi/magni stack if i can find one used. The main thing that my research indicates is that there's a HUGE advantage when you're ditching onboard amplification and DAC processing. By outputting something via USB, you're sending the amplification and processing to a chip that's powered via a DC source which is a lot less noisy. So even if your sound card is best of the best, its unlikely to sound as good as something external, even something as cheap as a Schiit Fulla 2.

If anyone knows of any hd650's or schiit dacs/amps for sale used lmk

Also have some etymonic PT4's for sale as well if anyone is up for a trade

The HD6xx and hd650 are awesome headphones (especially for around the $200 mark) for music. However, you will need an amp with sufficient power to get the most out of them, which means you'll need something a bit more than an entry level amp for Schiit.

Also, nobody will tell you that they're great for gaming because their soundstage is relatively small for an open back headphone. My recommendation would be to get an entry level open back from Beyerdynamic (DT990 or DT880), they're a bit cheaper and better for gaming

 

[obobskivich]

The HD6xx and hd650 are awesome headphones (especially for around the $200 mark) for music. However, you will need an amp with sufficient power to get the most out of them, which means you'll need something a bit more than an entry level amp for Schiit.

Also, nobody will tell you that they're great for gaming because their soundstage is relatively small for an open back headphone. My recommendation would be to get an entry level open back from Beyerdynamic (DT990 or DT880), they're a bit cheaper and better for gaming

The HD 580/6x series don't require all that much power; they are higher than "typical" (vs say, earbuds/mobile-focused devices) impedance, which leaves a lot of mobile/battery powered/etc devices out (they just don't have sufficient voltage output), but they really are not this "unslayable beast" that requires very expensive amplification "just to work." And as far as "get the most out of them" - quantify that. A few mW/ch is really all that's ever going to be needed, realistically, as long as the amplifier is okay doing that into 300 ohms (or thereabouts). There's plenty of "entry level" amps that can do that easy peasy.

As far as for gaming, I'd agree to an extent - they will still be better than any "gaming headset" I've ever heard, and still do a very respectable job at 3D positioning, but the soundstage itself is not as Montana-big-sky-massive as something like the K701. I'd also take issue with calling DT880 "entry level" - they're far from it, and the notion that we need to be spending $5k+ to get "good sound" really circles back to "consumers shilling consumers." Top tier headphones really don't need to cost more than $300-400, and the HD 580/6x and DT880 are certainly among the best examples thereof.

 

[taxman2]

External dac is the solution. But that is for dedicated stereo. There are lot of processes in a PC. That makes a lot of noise inside - sure a lot of jitter outside. Internal card is not a solution.

 

[obobskivich]

External dac is the solution. But that is for dedicated stereo. There are lot of processes in a PC. That makes a lot of noise inside - sure a lot of jitter outside. Internal card is not a solution.

Objective measurements say otherwise. I've heard this "there's so much noise it makes so much bad stuff happen its unlistenable and totally polluted you need to go external" and yet never seen anyone, anywhere, produce some sort of quantitative, repeatable, dead-to-rights proof of this claim. Grounding noise coming off of a badly done integrated audio solution is certainly a thing, but honestly the integrated audio on many modern PCs (and yes, even Macs) is getting to be pretty excellent in its own right, and modern equipment shouldn't continue to be penalized just because 15-20 years ago there was some bad stuff that could've happened one time to someone's kid brother's best friend's dad's cousin's girlfriend's dog...

 

[taxman2]

You probably know the word "dedicated" like dedicated audio pc. This pc has only one job to do - to play audio files. Even there are still a lot of processes that need to be stopped or reduced. When you use your pc or mac for general purposes I don't want to imagine what's inside... And that's generating a lot of noise. And if you have 10 programs opened and decide to play some music as well - that is a disaster.

 

[obobskivich]

You probably know the word "dedicated" like dedicated audio pc. This pc has only one job to do - to play audio files. Even there are still a lot of processes that need to be stopped or reduced. When you use your pc or mac for general purposes I don't want to imagine what's inside... And that's generating a lot of noise. And if you have 10 programs opened and decide to play some music as well - that is a disaster.

I'm still going to disagree with this notion entirely, both because there's no "proof" that such is happening, and because my own experience completely disagrees with this as well. Especially the idea that "number of running processes" somehow correlates to "generation of noise." There's nothing "disastrous" or "toxic" about using a PC for more than one thing at a time - we've come a long way since 1979.

 

[castleofargh]

I don't think internal or external is such a big deal TBH. sure enough most default sound cards are a DAC+amp for less that 50$ and many don't even offer a line out, so as a result they are often inferior to many external DAC+amp options. I'd be inclined to believe that much. but just get a proper soundcard and the measurements are likely to be very good.
even cellphones achieve very low noise nowadays so it shouldn't be strange that a computer could stay fairly clean. I'd worry more about the impact of turning on the WiFi on some computers, or simply having noisy fans.

 

[astro]

If you get a USB DAC, make sure it can take its own power source. If it pulls the power from USB, you're dealing with the same ground loop interference issues from the USB power source. In fact, in my experience, my USB DAC has been far more prone to ground loop issues than using internal PCI soundcards.

 

[domsch1988]

I have to agree with @obobskivich here. Integrated Mainboard audio on any half way decent mainboard is actually really good nowadays. I haven't had any noise problems in years. And no, the number of processes you rund is irrelevant to the audio quality. Only when i use several USB devices plugged into each other (Modeling guitar amp with USB Data transfer into USB Audio Interface) i do get some noise, but there's the Ground lift option on my amp to remedy those issues.

As far as external DAC's go, it's mostly convenience for me. My PC is under my desk. So the Audio Ports all far from easy to reach. A USB DAC lets me plug in my Headphones at the desk. I'm not convinced the more expensive DAC's make a real difference in sound. Amps do, DAC's, i'm not so sure. Though i haven't had the opportunity to test several high end DAC's, so there might be something in the above 500$ class i'm missing. Yet, isn't it the DAC's job to produce the exact Analog signal for a given Digital input? Wouldn't then all DAC's that are decent produce the exact same output?

 

[astro]

I've been having so much frustration getting rid of the ground loop noise from my USB DAC. I'm about to trash the ****ing thing and get a soundcard. I got a USB Isolator and a powered USB hub. My USB DAC won't be detected with it plugged into either of them. Other devices work fine plugged into them.

 

[PJABBER]

I think the iFi nano iCAN is really what you are looking for if you want 3D positioning for gaming - http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/nano-ican .

I'll throw in another idea - if you are using a voice chat app like Discord to communicate with your FPS team, then having a a decent recording audio interface with a competent mic input might clean up your end of the chat and offer you better headphone audio as well.

No 3D processing with these but you will get a great bang for the buck no-latency monitoring solution with either the Behringer U-PHORIA UMC202HD or UMC204HD.

 

[jannovak]

@obobskivich so in Your opinion, there is nothing wrong with plugging good active studio monitors into a good motherboard? I'm asking 'casue I'd rather do that or buy an internal soundcard later on, than have an external DAC.

There is one thing that You did not cover here though, I think. And that's the connection option - motherboards and internal soundcards do not have balanced inputs/outputs, right? You can only connect studio monitors to a mobo or an internal soundcard using an unballanced connection. Whereas an external DAC (an audio interface for example) gives you an option to connect studio monitors using balanced connection, right? And from what I know a balanced connection is superior to an unballanced one.

 

[obobskivich]

@obobskivich so in Your opinion, there is nothing wrong with plugging good active studio monitors into a good motherboard? I'm asking 'casue I'd rather do that or buy an internal soundcard later on, than have an external DAC.

If the soundcard (whatever it is) isn't doing something really offensive, sure why not? I'm not saying all integrated audio (or soundcards) are created equal though - some have problems, for sure. But the bigger piece here, which you get in the next paragraph: I'm not aware of any motherboard that does balanced output from its integrated audio, and only a handful of internal cards that can do balanced out (and none that do it without a breakout).

There is one thing that You did not cover here though, I think. And that's the connection option - motherboards and internal soundcards do not have balanced inputs/outputs, right? You can only connect studio monitors to a mobo or an internal soundcard using an unballanced connection. Whereas an external DAC (an audio interface for example) gives you an option to connect studio monitors using balanced connection, right? And from what I know a balanced connection is superior to an unballanced one.

Right. And if you have a controller in there (like Mackie Big Knob or something) it will want balanced too. Balanced vs unbalanced isn't so "cut and dry" though - the big advantage to balanced connections is noise rejection and long runs, neither of which tend to be a huge problem for at home (because you probably don't have a snake with 30-40 channels in it running 100ft in your home). That said, converting balanced to unbalanced (or vice versa) can bring in problems with sensitivity mismatch and extra noise (if the device doing the conversion isn't great), so if you have speakers or whatever that require it one way, try to accommodate that. There's a lot of gear from the "pro" or "prosumer" world that can make this work though, so it isn't like you're forced into nose-bleed hi-fi to get balanced connections if you want to run studio monitors.

 

[jannovak]

Ok, so basically if speakers/monitors have unbalanced inputs and I want to connect them to a mobo or an internal soundcard, which have only unbalanced outputs, it's best to use the unbalanced connection instead of converting to balanced? I'm not missing out on an audio quality by using unbalanced connection compared to a balanced one? We're talking about small distances here (probably 1,5m lenght cable).