[ChipnDalebowl]

This is unusual for me...I'm usually the one who says "blah blah its placebo" or something like that, but I think I'm a victim of placebo itself.
 
The story:
 
I recently upgraded to a new laptop and to Windows 7 Home Premium from XP.  With my older laptop and XP I had been using a Turtle Beach USB Micro soundcard to get away from onboard sound.  For the hell of it, I decided to test the onboard audio with the new laptop and my Thinksound Rain IEMs.  If there's any hiss, clicking, interference, etc I would hear it.  Plugged them in, Windows asked what I plugged in, I said headphones....silence.  No hissing, no nothing.  Nice!  Played FLAC files through XMPlay as usual, made sure all audio enhancements are off (they're on by default) and my my....this is nice sound.  Very very good midrange!
 
And this is onboard audio???  No way....yes way.  I've read that sound has been tweaked between XP and 7 and never thought much of the differences.  Is there really a huge difference between the way sound is processed between the two OSes?  I've got to be a victim of placebo here.  Really, pinch me people. 

 

[El_Doug]

It's not placebo - you are being very open minded about sound.  I would argue that, in fact, you have managed to trust your ears instead of listening to the hype-generation machine that is the portable audio subsections of head-fi.  Quite an achievement! 
 
The "headphone" selection, i'd guess, is smart enough to lower the gain as to remove hiss, and to avoid massive attenuation to compensate. 
 
Remember, IEMs are VERY easy to drive.  I actually prefer my JH13's out of my clip+, and sold both my ibasso d10 and hm-801.  This player, and I'd guess your onboard audio as well, measure very flat and fast, with low output impedance, when presented with a very easy load.  IEMs meet this easy load criteria  

 

[JerryLove]

Hiss will generally be interference on the amplifier (or pre-amp connections). I'd say that the sound hardware in your new laptop is better designed than in your old laptop. (not Win7/XP)
 
As to "better" sound reproduction: there are a number of possible reasons. The DAC may be better, the amp may be better (may have been underdriving your headphones before), the CODEC may be better, the OS may be handling the CODEC better, or it may just be the lack of hiss

 

[El_Doug]

Hiss is often also the result of the natural noise floor from the DAC being overamplified by an amp with too high of a gain setting, far more often than interference

 

[Uncle Erik]

Yep, onboard audio can be just fine. I occasionally listen off my laptop, too. And I run IEMs right out of an iPod.

Don't buy into that "there is always something better and you MUST buy it" mentality. You'll end up spending $300 for six inches of wire that isn't any better than the others. Lots of inexpensive and modestly-priced gear sounds and performs great. It's just that you can't do much genital-waving and invoke the Mystical Great Questions of the Universe and Life with a used $1 powercord from the swapmeet.

 

[Shike]

I'm glad someone has good experience with headphones on laptops.  My Dell Vostro 1500 is noisy as heck (and others have noted they didn't design the headphone out properly on laptop forums) . . . my Acer netbook I haven't used enough, but iirc I could hear the hard-drive spin-ups.
 
Of course this was with Triple.Fi's . . . sometimes I question if they're too easy to drive >_< '

 

[Prog Rock Man]

What laptop is it? Laptops with good on board sound cards would be very useful information. My Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF is much better than my old Dell Inspiron 1300.

 

[ChipnDalebowl]

The new laptop is a Dell XPS-17.  There's two headphone jacks...one can do a digital out I guess...I'll never need that feature.  Soundcard is a Realtrack HD card.  Not positive of much else.  The card can handle sample rates up to 24-bit 192khz resolution.  I keep it at 44khz because I'm not sure if its any good with resampling.
 
As for previous comments, I never considered the impedance of IEMs to be a factor, but you are correct--too much sound can be very bad for them.  So perhaps the signal isn't necessarily any different between XP/7 but might be better matched for headphone listening.  That's pretty cool. 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Reading through various computer specs and it would appear that computer makers are now ell aware that the PC is becoming a major source of music listening and it is in their interests to make sure sound cards are better. I am sure all that is needed most of the time is some shielding to get rid of background noise. There is less hiss from my Sony that from the previous Dell.

 

[BlackbeardBen]

And perhaps a little more power.  My Lenovo has a fairly clean signal, but it has trouble powering my Alessandros in anything but a very quiet environment.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

The new laptop is a Dell XPS-17.  There's two headphone jacks...one can do a digital out I guess...I'll never need that feature.  Soundcard is a Realtrack HD card.  Not positive of much else.  The card can handle sample rates up to 24-bit 192khz resolution.  I keep it at 44khz because I'm not sure if its any good with resampling.
 
As for previous comments, I never considered the impedance of IEMs to be a factor, but you are correct--too much sound can be very bad for them.  So perhaps the signal isn't necessarily any different between XP/7 but might be better matched for headphone listening.  That's pretty cool. 

 
What do you mean?

Is it a SPDIF out?  Is it optical or coaxial?
 
Curious
 
USG
 

Edit: a quick look at the specs of your laptop show SPDIF.....   probably optical out of a headphone sized jack.  Not sure now what the other headphone jack does??

 
Second Edit:  a look through the user manual shows the SPDIF is accessed through the S-video connection via an adapter.     http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1710/en/om/media.htm#wp1070626
 

Ports, Slots & Chassis

Externally Accessible
Mini DisplayPort (1),
2 total USB 3.0
2 total USB 2.0 (1 / 1 eSATA/powershare combo)
Integrated network connector 10/100/1000 LAN (RJ45)
HDMI 1.4
AC adapter connector
Audio jacks (headphone with SPDIF support (2), 1 Mic-in)

 

[ChipnDalebowl]

I don't know squat about SPDIF, but yeah one of the jacks can do something like that advanced audio stuff. 

  Laptop makers have gotten smarter I guess.

 

[power911]

onboard soundcards are pretty good actually... it's just that some people just don't believe their ears and waste their money on expensive soundcards which improve 20% It's only bad if it really had hiss,crackle and pops or the sound signature doesn't suit them.

 

[JerryLove]

Quote:

Hiss is often also the result of the natural noise floor from the DAC being overamplified by an amp with too high of a gain setting, far more often than interference

I have no idea what the statistics are... I doubt any have been compiled. I know only my own experience there.
 
Firstly: you are absolutely correct that a low-gain signal being heavily amplified later will cause hiss to become audible.
 
Way back in the day, I had a hiss problem on one of my tower PCs. The problem was solved by relocating the sound card (I believe an original SoundBlaster) to another slot. Later I discovered that I could put the sound card in its original slot if I relocated the adjacent card elsewhere in the case.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

Quote:

Hiss is often also the result of the natural noise floor from the DAC being overamplified by an amp with too high of a gain setting, far more often than interference

I have no idea what the statistics are... I doubt any have been compiled. I know only my own experience there.
 
Firstly: you are absolutely correct that a low-gain signal being heavily amplified later will cause hiss to become audible.
 
Way back in the day, I had a hiss problem on one of my tower PCs. The problem was solved by relocating the sound card (I believe an original SoundBlaster) to another slot. Later I discovered that I could put the sound card in its original slot if I relocated the adjacent card elsewhere in the case.

That's interesting.
 
Do you think it was proximity that caused the hiss?