Less than 100€ DAC vs MOBO audio

[leyo96]

34 minutes ago, xtroria said:

by DAC, you mean a dac and an amp because a DAC will not power a headphone by itself.

 

Why would you need an external amp + dac? Does it not get loud enough when you're on 90% on your onboard audio?

 

If it does, and you're not getting any hiss or EM static, you don't need an additional amp / dac.

 

If you still want an external amp + dac, I recommend not cheaping out by only spending 100 euro and spend some proper money to get something like magni + modi combo

I'm building the pc Friday, but on my Msi laptop I use my headphones at around 30% volume and my mobo is Msi. 

I'd like to have a better audio quality since I like and care about audio and have 350€ headphones (at least 6 years ago). I read that a dac improves the audio quality so I asked here if getting something under 100€ is worth it and from most of the answers it's seems so. 

Other option is to put the huge onkyo amp that's in the living room that we don't use and put it under my desk

[leyo96]

1 hour ago, vertix said:

this is heresy

LOL I have no clue about this stuff, that's why I asked. 

Can you give any help? 

[leyo96]

39 minutes ago, rice guru said:

hes pretty limited to amazon italy.

If it's something just sold in the USA I can't get it for sure, if it's in Europe I can find it, but this looks like a niche market and not very popular in Italy 

[rice guru]

DACs like I said before converts from digital to analog. aything you can plug your headphones to have a built in dac whether that be your phone or a motherboard. the onlytime you should consider upgrading DACs is if your audio doesn't sound clean. if your head static or noise that means you need a dac. all a DAC will do is make your audio sound cleaner. 

[leyo96]

3 minutes ago, rice guru said:

DACs like I said before converts from digital to analog. aything you can plug your headphones to have a built in dac whether that be your phone or a motherboard. the onlytime you should consider upgrading DACs is if your audio doesn't sound clean. if your head static or noise that means you need a dac. all a DAC will do is make your audio sound cleaner. 

Since I'll need a 2m headphone cable extension if I don't get a dac, will that affect audio quality and does cable quality matter? (can I just buy the 7€ one on Amazon?) 

[rice guru]

2 minutes ago, leyo96 said:

Since I'll need a 2m headphone cable extension if I don't get a dac, will that affect audio quality and does cable quality matter? (can I just buy the 7€ one on Amazon?) 

that shouldn't affect audio quality. but Im not discouraging getting a dac amp I would say grab one and if you thing the change in sound quality isn't worth it you can return it. value and audio is always a subjective matter anyway you won't know till you try it.