[EsthetiX]

What's the difference between a USB DAC thing and a nice studio production soundcard (like focusrite saphire) other than the pbvious processing factors? I'm talking purely sound quality in general. I'm new to the whole head-fi DAC thing but I know a lot about studio soundcards....

 

[sejarzo]

My impression is that folks believe that, if a "strictly DAC" and an external soundcard cost the same, then the "strictly DAC" should sound better.......because more of the cost to produce it would be spent on the D/A and analog out circuitry, not on good A/D conversion, preamps, switching, etc.

Another opinion is that the internal headamps in the Saffire/0404 USB/Firebox are more oriented toward monitoring via low impedance cans than absolute sound quality driving a wide variety of loads, so one would want to use a dedicated headamp for "serious listening."

I like my 0404 USB, but the internal headamp doesn't drive my HD600's adequately.

All I can recommend is to listen and judge for yourself; you may find that for the money, the performance of a two-channel recording interface is perfect for your needs.

One other thing.......I might be wrong, but I don't recall seeing many "Firewire DACs"; those devices that use Firewire are all soundcards......such as the Saffire. That's a way of isolating the sound device from other hardware, presuming that you don't run an external Firewire HD or something like that.

 

[Bones13]

There are good sound cards better than cheap external DACs of whatever persuasion.

There are superb external DACs better than any soundcard.

The general feeling that I get after my reading is that any external unit will both be free of the wandering EM waves that exist inside the computer box, while being subject to the whims of its own power supply. The better external DACs will have a quality power supply, or even run off of rechargable batteries. You can tweak your system to your own level of paranoia, and $$$.

Given a PC based system, and certain price constraints, there are internal cards that perform as well as similar/greater priced external DACs.

But as you read reviews, remember that everyones musical, and listening tastes are not the same, and opinions will vary on the same gear.

 

[EsthetiX]

Hmm thanks for the posts guys. Interesting reads.

I have a novation X station. I wonder how it fairs in comparison to a mid level dac.....

 

[Clutz]

that is a very difficult question to answer, because it's your ears we're talking about. Some people swear by non oversampling DACs that have stacked TDA1543 chips on them. Other people say that stacking DACs is a silly thing to do. Others will say that an oversampling design is better to a non-oversampling design for various mathematical reasons, while proponents of a non-oversampling design typically counter with the argument that non-oversampling designs just sound more natural and musical, even if they don't measure as well.

Bottom line: You've posed an unanswerable question.

 

[ezkcdude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clutz /img/forum/go_quote.gif that is a very difficult question to answer, because it's your ears we're talking about. Some people swear by non oversampling DACs that have stacked TDA1543 chips on them. Other people say that stacking DACs is a silly thing to do. Others will say that an oversampling design is better to a non-oversampling design for various mathematical reasons, while proponents of a non-oversampling design typically counter with the argument that non-oversampling designs just sound more natural and musical, even if they don't measure as well. Bottom line: You've posed an unanswerable question.

It's funny, I was just doing a test of a NOS DAC using a new soundcard I got (E-MU 1212M). Here are some results (I am apalled at how poorly it measures):

Summary

Frequency Response

I've never seen an FR graph that strange!

 

[EsthetiX]

hey how do you get a summary readout like thaT?

 

[ezkcdude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EsthetiX /img/forum/go_quote.gif hey how do you get a summary readout like thaT?

You can generate an HTML report after running the test.

 

[dsavitsk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ezkcdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif (I am apalled at how poorly it measures):

You think that's bad, take a look at a 10K tone.

How does your dac measure? While they do look bad, they don't normally look that bad. Seems like something's up.

 

[EsthetiX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ezkcdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can generate an HTML report after running the test.

Yah but where. I dont see any option....

 

[melomaniac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EsthetiX /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the difference between a USB DAC thing and a nice studio production soundcard

the theory is that a) a USB DAC bypasses a lot of the noisy computer environment (which a card does not necessarily achieve), and that b) USB is less prone to - dare I type that word - jitter.

while a) is simple enough to grasp, I must say that even though I sometimes read through some tech literature, I haven't retained a lay version of the argument for b). the empirical audio and wavelength websites make the case for computer audio in different ways partly, I think, because of their different opinions about your question.

 

[EsthetiX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by melomaniac /img/forum/go_quote.gif the theory is that a) a USB DAC bypasses a lot of the noisy computer environment (which a card does not necessarily achieve), and that b) USB is less prone to - dare I type that word - jitter.

Yah but my soundcard is an external USB soundcard soo...

 

[Clutz]

Well, if it is an external soundcard then it probably is getting many of the benefits of an external DAC versus a regular internal PCI sound card. That said, it still probably doesn't have as good a DAC as a dedicated external USB DAC. So, on the whole, it's not clear what your point is?

 

[EsthetiX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clutz /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, if it is an external soundcard then it probably is getting many of the benefits of an external DAC versus a regular internal PCI sound card. That said, it still probably doesn't have as good a DAC as a dedicated external USB DAC. So, on the whole, it's not clear what your point is?

It's a dedicated external soundcard for studio music production. I don't understand how using a DAC would make sound more accurate?

Here, this is it.. http://www.novationmusic.com/product...pe=1&bArchive=

It uses A to D converters: 2 x 24 bit Delta Sigma

Basically, I'm just curious how it stacks up next to these DAC's you guys keep talking about. I was trying to run that test (posted above) but I can't get the results to show up when i go through it... Anyone have any ideas how I can test it?

 

[Clutz]

Well, the reason most soundcards probably do not have as good a DAC chip on them as a dedicated USB DAC designed for high fiedlity audio reproduction is because a sound card has more purposes than simple digital to analog conversion - there are other constraints being placed on the card. It's not a hard and fast rule by any means- it's just that with a soundcard I would expect there to be more trade offs, where as with a pure DAC, less trade offs would hace to be made for the DAC component.

The standardw ay of testing the quality of a device is to use a fairly high end soundcard with RMAA - but I've never done it, so I have no more useful information on that front.

That looks like a pretty cool toy though.