Extrenal vs Internal Soundcard?

[Luddy †]

I have a pair of DT 990’s and I wanna pair them with a sound card but not sure if I should go for an external solution or internal. My father in law might be able to fix me a good external sound card, but would I be better off getting an internal one meant for gaming since that’s mostly what I’ll use the DT’s with?

[Radium_Angel]

8 minutes ago, Luddy † said:

I have a pair of DT 990’s and I wanna pair them with a sound card but not sure if I should go for an external solution or internal. My father in law might be able to fix me a good external sound card, but would I be better off getting an internal one meant for gaming since that’s mostly what I’ll use the DT’s with?

Unless you're a hardcore audiophile, you'll never notice the difference...

[Timotheus2]

There is no such thing as "gaming sound". Get an external one. Those don't have to use gaming marketing to sell their stuff.

[Bananasplit_00]

i really like my Soundblaster Z, but generally the external ones are considered better

[WereCat]

Sound is sound. You either like how it sounds or you don't. 

Sound card is usually AMP, you get it if you can't get the volume high enough. 

You get DAC if your audio suffers from noise. 

 

Any modern PC should be capable of having both good enough. 

Unless you're hard-core into audio, don't bother. 

[ToflixGamer]

Modern mainboards already have pretty good onboard-sound, you won't hear a great difference between a dedicated soundcard and the integrated one. 

 

BUT: most mainboards lack of a good headphone-amp. Even though it says, that it can power "up to 600 Ohm" doesn't mean, that that really works.

Headphones can sound different, if they're not getting enough voltage to fully drive them.

 

Just get an headphone-amp like the Schiit Magni 3 (if you want to get the best for around 100$), or if you want to go cheaper, buy the Sabaj PHA-2. 

If you're not hearing any difference (besides getting louder volume) just return it. 

[kuddlesworth9419]

Always use an external DAC.

[Ace Balthazar]

Hello,

 

I deal with audio a lot due to my hobbies and where I work.

 

To directly answer your question, you should get an external DAC (Digital Audio Converter) and headphone amp. This will reduce electromagnetic interference coming from your PC, which internal sound cards that have dedicated headphone amps can suffer from.

 

now to supply with more information,

DAC's and amps can come as separate units or in a sort of all-in-one unit. Either would be fine for your situation, you just have to find one that suits your needs. I will not recommend any right now, as I do not know what kind of budget you have, nor do I know your needs outside of it being able to run your headphones.

 

I hope you find this information helpful

[LinusOnLine]

HDMI in to a good amp. Does not get much better than that.

[quasides]

On 2/15/2019 at 9:50 PM, WereCat said:

Sound is sound. You either like how it sounds or you don't. 

Sound card is usually AMP, you get it if you can't get the volume high enough. 

 

You get DAC if your audio suffers from noise. 

  

Any modern PC should be capable of having both good enough. 

Unless you're hard-core into audio, don't bother. 

 

uhm excuse me?

a DAC (digital analog converter) translate bits into analog audio - all soundcards are DACs

all soundcards are also AMPs jsut not very good ones for the most part as the dac would deliver only a few milivolts, it needs to be amplfied to be heard always

no any modern pc has something in that is a softwareemulation that pretends to be a dac and supports all the codecs

with bad filters and low end amps

 

 

[rice guru]

On 2/15/2019 at 3:04 PM, Luddy † said:

I have a pair of DT 990’s and I wanna pair them with a sound card but not sure if I should go for an external solution or internal. My father in law might be able to fix me a good external sound card, but would I be better off getting an internal one meant for gaming since that’s mostly what I’ll use the DT’s with?

external is waay better I also have dt 990's I use a grace design sdac into a monoprice monolith liquid spark as my setup. as much as people wanna reccomend the fiio e10k for those headphones don't do it I also have one. it powers it and thats it it can barely get loud. 

[an actual squirrel]

External is generally better, but you should check a review with good measurements to make sure the thing is good. There is the infamous modi 2 review on audiosciencereview where it was found to have noise problems like motherboard audio.

 

For gaming though, I like to recommend the sennheiser gsx 1000. It's not about the absolute audio quality, but the feature set. It's got a pretty nice 7.1 for heaphones, intuitive controls, and a well written instruction manual.