Are sound cards worth it

[Heats with Nvidia]

I didn`t

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

You're joking, right? Onboard is way better than your fallacy. On a blind test, you can never tell onboard from sound cards.

I was talking about music PRODUCTION, not even music listening... you're way off.

You're wrong, admit it and move on because music production requires far more tone than music listening. Go bed.

I never wrote anything about music production, just about the fact that bad onboard sound is still out there and occasionally just isn`t that good. But most are absolutely fine for most people and applications. I never mentioned music production, which feature wise has absolutely different needs than onboard sound. Like proper microphone inputs or balanced outputs with more output voltage than onboard sound can provide, higher power headphone amplifiers, high impedance inputs, etc. Just to name a few. Depending on what you do.

 

Which of these statements is wrong? I had onboard sound with clearly audible interference from the USB data lines and that one would be easy to spot in a direct comparision with an external interface that doesn`t have that problem. Or those that just don`t have enough output power for my headphones. Do you really think, you couldn`t spot that in a blind test? The one with the clearly audible interference was with an X570 chipset, so it wasn`t that old. By the way, i happily used good onboard audio for years until i needed an interface for other reasons than its sound quality and it was an improvement, but really just a really small one compared to almost everything else in the signal chain.

[Motifator]

16 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

I didn`t

I never wrote anything about music production, just about the fact that bad onboard sound is still out there and occasionally just isn`t that good. But most are absolutely fine for most people and applications. I never mentioned music production, which feature wise has absolutely different needs than onboard sound. Like proper microphone inputs or balanced outputs with more output voltage than onboard sound can provide, higher power headphone amplifiers, high impedance inputs, etc. Just to name a few. Depending on what you do.

 

Which of these statements is wrong? I had onboard sound with clearly audible interference from the USB data lines and that one would be easy to spot in a direct comparision with an external interface that doesn`t have that problem. Or those that just don`t have enough output power for my headphones. Do you really think, you couldn`t spot that in a blind test? The one with the clearly audible interference was with an X570 chipset, so it wasn`t that old. By the way, i happily used good onboard audio for years until i needed an interface for other reasons than its sound quality and it was an improvement, but really just a really small one compared to almost everything else in the signal chain.

Skill issue / user error. I'm not going to rely on ANYTHING you say just because your nickname has Nvidia in it.

I've dealt with more audio than you can remember.

The X570 chipset is typically attached to the Realtek which is hooked up towards golden colored Nippon capacitors, it's not much different than a base bar none TPA, which is the exact same thing as your power amp. 

The POD rack unit does not have to be used for music production. I can hook it up for listening to music as well. Ultimately, it's a jack of all trades.

Go to bed.

[Heats with Nvidia]

4 minutes ago, Motifator said:

Skill issue / user error.

Then please be so kind and explain to me what i did so wrong, so i can hear USB interference in my headphones. Only with that motherboard, by the way.

7 minutes ago, Motifator said:

 I'm not going to rely on ANYTHING you say just because your nickname has Nvidia in it.

Really? Thats it?

9 minutes ago, Motifator said:

I've dealt with more audio than you can remember.

Thats not impossible, but highly unlikely.

 

11 minutes ago, Motifator said:

The X570 chipset is typically attached to the Realtek which is hooked up towards golden colored Nippon capacitors, it's not much different than a base bar none TPA, which is the exact same thing as your power amp.

It was a Realtek and like i wrote, it was good, but badly implemented. I am not a huge fan of the TPA, but wouldn`t say they are bad. 

 

14 minutes ago, Motifator said:

The POD rack unit does not have to be used for music production. I can hook it up for listening to music as well. Ultimately, it's a jack of all trades.

Thats basically an external interface built specifically for audio and since it is, it has what significance when this thread is about the quality of onboard audio?

16 minutes ago, Motifator said:

Go to bed.

I would like to, but i am currently sitting in a train on my way to a manufacturer of audio equipment to discuss some details about something they will produce in the future. Mostly technical details. But since i have NVidia in the forum name, i should probably take the train back home and don`t answer their questions.

[Motifator]

Yes that would be good. You should turn your PC off, stop spreading misinformation about Realtek processors hook up to X570 chipset, and go to bed. It's cold in Canada isn't it?

But to answer your question, what matters when you're listening to music, is the speakers or headphones.

If you're getting ground hum, noise, whatever from onboard, you're still doing it wrong. You don't know as much audio as whoever built that board down who knows where in China / Taiwan. Onboard is fine. If it wasn't fine, I would have stopped using it long ago.

Right now, I'm hooked up over Bluetooth to a TPA power amp.

I've had better toys. I can't notice a lot of the differences, really, go sleep. It helps.

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

Yes that would be good. You should turn your PC off, stop spreading misinformation about Realtek processors hook up to X570 chipset, and go to bed. It's cold in Canada isn't it?

But to answer your question, what matters when you're listening to music, is the speakers or headphones.

If you're getting ground hum, noise, whatever from onboard, you're still doing it wrong. You don't know as much audio as whoever built that board down who knows where in China / Taiwan. Onboard is fine. If it wasn't fine, I would have stopped using it long ago.

Right now, I'm hooked up over Bluetooth to a TPA power amp.

I've had better toys. I can't notice a lot of the differences, really, go sleep. It helps.

I will not shut down my laptop or go to sleep now, since its (very) early morning now and i don`t want to miss the stop where i need to leave the train. But don`t worry, i wont have a lot of time replying to your posts in the next couple of hours.

 

I have no idea what the weather in Canada is right now, since i have never been therebut since you think to know everything about me because of the forum name, you can tell me, why i have to be on that part of this planet and not where i currently am, which is pretty far from canada.

 

Maybe in this time you can actually read and try to understand that i never wrote anything of what you seem to read into it or maybe explain to me, how i can produce USB interference through a ground loop with passive headphones plugged directly into the computer and why the problem dissappeared after replacing the motherboard without changing anything else. But its not the fault of the motherboard, of course.

 

Have fun with your TPA, since i am currently not at home, enjoying music, i currently use Bluetooth headphones, what blasphemy from somebody that only says that bad onboard audio even exists.

 

[Motifator]

3 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

I will not shut down my laptop or go to sleep now, since its (very) early morning now and i don`t want to miss the stop where i need to leave the train. But don`t worry, i wont have a lot of time replying to your posts in the next couple of hours.

 

I have no idea what the weather in Canada is right now, since i have never been therebut since you think to know everything about me because of the forum name, you can tell me, why i have to be on that part of this planet and not where i currently am, which is pretty far from canada.

 

Maybe in this time you can actually read and try to understand that i never wrote anything of what you seem to read into it or maybe explain to me, how i can produce USB interference through a ground loop with passive headphones plugged directly into the computer and why the problem dissappeared after replacing the motherboard without changing anything else. But its not the fault of the motherboard, of course.

 

Have fun with your TPA, since i am currently not at home, enjoying music, i currently use Bluetooth headphones, what blasphemy from somebody that only says that bad onboard audio even exists.

 

Bad onboard audio does not exist on X570. Again, skill issue. You're not bringing up the mobo's name but are only shooting wild posts... how are you sure it was even the motherboard?

Did you literally use professional equipment to test the EMI on the headphone stage..?

Or was it the RODE 5 meters XLR cable vs my old 1.5m mosque cable thing?

[Heats with Nvidia]

19 minutes ago, Motifator said:

Bad onboard audio does not exist on X570. Again, skill issue. You're not bringing up the mobo's name but are only shooting wild posts... how are you sure it was even the motherboard?

Did you literally use professional equipment to test the EMI on the headphone stage..?

Or was it the RODE 5 meters XLR cable vs my old 1.5m mosque cable thing?

When i am back at home, i can search through the old invoices, if you really want an exact model name. But please forgive me, when i don`t remember that of every mainboard, i ever bought.

 

And why would i need to measure when this is the only mainboard that has clearly audible interference even when the headphones are plugged directly into the motherboard and i never had this issue with any motherboard i had in this case and in this application before or after. 

 

So you really think motherboard manufacturers are totally infallable and every mainboard on this planet is absolutely perfect, when it comes to sound.

 

 

[Psittac]

I really don't want to argue, I'm drunk, my grandma passed away in hospice and my uncle got hit by a car and killed in a short time frame.  Then the day after their funeral my dad went to the ER and got flight for life'd to have open heart surgery.  That was this monday, so arguing about audio stuff isn't exactly what I want to do right now.

 

But if I call on my memory of this thread, we have someone laying out an incredibly vague question using broken english, no hate on OP but it is what it is.  And everyone decided to start arguing about no one knows what.

 

What I do know is that through my hobby time of 4+ years in the headphone game, 15+ of HT and a lifetime of enjoying every last thing I got to listen to....  it doesn't matter if you have a $15 pair of Koss on a phone output or thousand dollar+ chain, it is all enjoyable.  There are obvious outliers which provide dog shart, but it's all great.  While I haven't messed with professional audio gear much, I know that it's all about the love of the hobby.

 

I swear you could post "the sky is blue" and people will argue.

 

I know what I have experienced.... Koss to a few K, there IS a difference.  Whether that is worth it or not who can say.  I don't even remember what we're arguing about.  One guy says that sometimes onboard is garbage, another says that if you aren't production quality you are doing it wrong and onboard does everything anyone could need.

 

*I'll read through all of this tomorrow

[Motifator]

21 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

When i am back at home, i can search through the old invoices, if you really want an exact model name. But please forgive me, when i don`t remember that of every mainboard, i ever bought.

 

And why would i need to measure when this is the only mainboard that has clearly audible interference even when the headphones are plugged directly into the motherboard and i never had this issue with any motherboard i had in this case and in this application before or after. 

 

So you really think motherboard manufacturers are totally infallable and every mainboard on this planet is absolutely perfect, when it comes to sound.

 

 

Not goal post, X570 = mid end chipset at the very least. Unless you bought a sitcom Chinese X570 (btw how can't you remember what the board is?) they all go through very good regulations before you get it.

X570 is the single best chipset of the past 5 years, just taking my serious yellow card out.

[jaslion]

16 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

music I listen to with a card than with onboard sound, plus it can be louder if that's a problem

An amp/dac will actually do the same thing too. The main thing about o board is that it has all the signal it just lacks power and by getting an amp/dac often you can suddenly unlock hidden power from your headphones

[Motifator]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

An amp/dac will actually do the same thing too. The main thing about o board is that it has all the signal it just lacks power and by getting an amp/dac often you can suddenly unlock hidden power from your headphones

which also can be compensated by halfway decent onboard audio, which happens to be your vanilla thing called Realtek onboard.

Honestly, onboard is fine.

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, Motifator said:

which also can be compensated by halfway decent onboard audio, which happens to be your vanilla thing called Realtek onboard.

Honestly, onboard is fine.

Oh yeah totally. I just mean that sometimes you can get a big boost that you werent expecting. Had this happen with a dt770 32 ohms and old arctis 3. They sounded flat (as they should) but a bit too flat as there was like no bass at all. Plugged em into a cheap lil amp and suddenly they got their bass that that was supposed to be there.

 

Appearantly my laptops soundcard just sucked but that was a known issue with it appearantly

[Godlygamer23]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

which also can be compensated by halfway decent onboard audio, which happens to be your vanilla thing called Realtek onboard.

Honestly, onboard is fine.

This is primarily true on modern motherboards because they're isolated from the rest of the circuitry, but older systems often had integrated audio just freely exposed to major components(CPU and GPU), so you would get EMI in your audio. 

 

But sound cards were affected by the same thing unless they were shielded. 

 

Case in point: 

I had a Soundblaster Recon3D without a shield, back when I had 660 Ti's in SLI(circa 2013) and under high load, I could hear a whine in my headphones that would change based on what the GPUs were doing. I switched to the Soundblaster Z, which is shielded, and it totally went away.

[Motifator]

You can tune and tweak the Realtek too, Equalizer APO is your friend. You don't really need dedicated gear unless you're bringing the big toys out.

[cmndr]

19 hours ago, Psittac said:

I did a budget roundup of dac/amp's and could tell a difference on those, but when I listened to YouTube those differences basically vanished.  If you aren't listening to source material that can take advantage of improvements then there is no point in going beyond onboard.

 

He's not saying ALL onboard is garbage, just that some manufacturers throw it in there because they basically have to, or manufacturing defects etc.  But I'll throw myself into the shat show and say that if you haven't heard a difference in upgrading from onboard, then you've been listening to the wrong equipment.  Even with my non-golden ears I can hear drastic improvements in clarity with the proper headphones and dac not to mention correctly powered.  Don't get me wrong, onboard has come a long ways and is way better than it used to be, but claiming that it's the end all be all with no where to go from that.... is just ignorance?

Putting this out there - I'm generally of the opinion that onboard is "good enough" - diminishing returns kick in quickly. 
My HD800 headphones, which are fairly hard to drive, benefit from a $100ish amp I bought a decade ago vs the cruddy amp on my work laptop. 
I think that for MOST people this is way less of a concern. 

 

DACs don't matter a ton unless you're battling ground loops, amps matter some but not a ton (not at all if you have active speakers with built in amps), 
Most people are better off focusing on getting good speakers/headphones before worrying about amps/DACs, the $10ish iPhone DACs are "good enough" from a sound quality perspective.
Inexpensive amps do wonders. And onboard is often more than good enough, though some implementations are lacking, with laptops being a quasi-common occurence and dirt cheap desktops also having some issues, sometimes. 

[Heats with Nvidia]

On 3/14/2024 at 6:57 AM, Motifator said:

Not goal post, X570 = mid end chipset at the very least. Unless you bought a sitcom Chinese X570 (btw how can't you remember what the board is?) they all go through very good regulations before you get it.

X570 is the single best chipset of the past 5 years, just taking my serious yellow card out.

You wanted me to look it up. So i did. It was an X570-A Pro from MSI with the ALC1220 codec. The audio part looked good and was one of the reasons, i chose it. I am sorry, i can`t gie you the exact revision of that board, since i don`t have i any more. But it should be one of the earlier ones. And like i said, the codec was fine, but the implementation had a flaw. Which one exactly? I have no idea. I work on enough audio electronics atwork, so i don`t have the desire to also do that at home, when i don`t need to and can just replace the board. The replacement (Asrock B550 Steel Legend) doesn`t have that problem and i now use an external interface anyway and like i also wrote, i didn`t get that one because i wasn`t satisfied with my onboard audio, but i needed some features, it couldn`t provide like microphone inputs that can provide 48V phantom power, so i can test and record with microphones that need it without needing my small mixing console or something similar at home.

[Motifator]

8 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

You wanted me to look it up. So i did. It was an X570-A Pro from MSI with the ALC1220 codec. The audio part looked good and was one of the reasons, i chose it. I am sorry, i can`t gie you the exact revision of that board, since i don`t have i any more. But it should be one of the earlier ones. And like i said, the codec was fine, but the implementation had a flaw. Which one exactly? I have no idea. I work on enough audio electronics atwork, so i don`t have the desire to also do that at home, when i don`t need to and can just replace the board. The replacement (Asrock B550 Steel Legend) doesn`t have that problem and i now use an external interface anyway and like i also wrote, i didn`t get that one because i wasn`t satisfied with my onboard audio, but i needed some features, it couldn`t provide like microphone inputs that can provide 48V phantom power, so i can test and record with microphones that need it without needing my small mixing console or something similar at home.

Bla bla bla, even more bla bla. Ok? You done with the trolling?

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

Bla bla bla, even more bla bla. Ok? You done with the trolling?

You asked for the information, i gave it to you. Thats all. And don`t project on me what you are doing.

[Motifator]

1 hour ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

You asked for the information, i gave it to you. Thats all. And don`t project on me what you are doing.

No, I will. I will project your user error on you for blaming the X570-A Pro for getting hiss / hum whatever. It's called Pro for a reason. Maybe you should have bought a non-pro board while at it?

Honestly, drop the gun.

You're wrong. Admit that you didn't know what you were doing and move on.

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

No, I will. I will project your user error on you for blaming the X570-A Pro for getting hiss / hum whatever. It's called Pro for a reason. Maybe you should have bought a non-pro board while at it?

Honestly, drop the gun.

You're wrong. Admit that you didn't know what you were doing and move on.

You really have fun trolling, do you? I am out if this thread. There is no merit in this. You are just wrong in every respect and if you want to die on that hill, go for it.

[Beerzerker]

On 3/14/2024 at 4:51 AM, Motifator said:

which also can be compensated by halfway decent onboard audio, which happens to be your vanilla thing called Realtek onboard.

Honestly, onboard is fine.

Bear in mind I do have some hearing loss in my case.

I've had AC97 and Realtek onboard sound over the course of several builds along the way but both didn't cut it in the end.

I was able to hear details better after I had upgraded my headphones.
The headphones made a difference, there is no denying it but the card was like icing on the cake after the headphone upgrade.

Because of my hearing loss it naturally takes more volume (Output) to hear it at the same level someone without hearing loss would, more output means more power is required and the onboard stuff just coudn't deliver to that end.
The headphones did improve things but after awhile I still found myself missing details, things that I "Thought" I heard but then again maybe I didn't.....
Switched to using a card and that make it a "Yes, I did hear that" kind of thing.

Onboard IS fine in itself and there's nothing wrong with it if that's what you want, but not everyone has the same expectations or requirements - Be it from what they hear, see or whatever else you want to name.
Not alot you can do about that except deal on an individual case-by-case basis.
 

[Motifator]

See avatar. I know what the best onboard is capable of, probably better than a lot of the folks here. Including rolling with headphones.

First of all you should never use very high end cans with onboard. That's literal asking for a car built to run on CNG to give you ignition of 98 Octane. Or rather, filling the LPG tank with 98 Octane. It's not recommended by anybody with a clue on audio.

Very high end headphones almost always benefit from external audio. Again, user fault, mismanagement on buying wrong things. I'm not trolling, I'm just putting my serious 2 cent card out.

However... if you do run SPEAKERS, that's a whole different aspect because I do run a pretty tasty setup off onboard... I mean come on, you're here telling me onboard doesn't cut the bread while I'm rocking and rolling with some €500 speakers? You'd think I'd run external audio, DACs, whatever... if onboard didn't cut it in the first place. Serious.

[Psittac]

42 minutes ago, Motifator said:

See avatar. I know what the best onboard is capable of, probably better than a lot of the folks here. Including rolling with headphones.

First of all you should never use very high end cans with onboard. That's literal asking for a car built to run on CNG to give you ignition of 98 Octane. Or rather, filling the LPG tank with 98 Octane. It's not recommended by anybody with a clue on audio.

Very high end headphones almost always benefit from external audio. Again, user fault, mismanagement on buying wrong things. I'm not trolling, I'm just putting my serious 2 cent card out.

However... if you do run SPEAKERS, that's a whole different aspect because I do run a pretty tasty setup off onboard... I mean come on, you're here telling me onboard doesn't cut the bread while I'm rocking and rolling with some €500 speakers? You'd think I'd run external audio, DACs, whatever... if onboard didn't cut it in the first place. Serious.

Dude You're all over the place, you make no sense and I declare you a troll

11 hours ago, Motifator said:

Bla bla bla, even more bla bla. Ok? You done with the trolling?

 

8 hours ago, Motifator said:

No, I will. I will project your user error on you for blaming the X570-A Pro for getting hiss / hum whatever. It's called Pro for a reason. Maybe you should have bought a non-pro board while at it?

Honestly, drop the gun.

You're wrong. Admit that you didn't know what you were doing and move on.

You have little understanding of what @Heats with Nvidia is saying and you're taking what other's have said after the fact to prove or rather disprove your own statements.  From what I remember I don't always see eye to eye with Heats, but in this example you are just trolling.

 

On 3/14/2024 at 4:09 PM, cmndr said:

Putting this out there - I'm generally of the opinion that onboard is "good enough" - diminishing returns kick in quickly. 
My HD800 headphones, which are fairly hard to drive, benefit from a $100ish amp I bought a decade ago vs the cruddy amp on my work laptop. 
I think that for MOST people this is way less of a concern. 

 

DACs don't matter a ton unless you're battling ground loops, amps matter some but not a ton (not at all if you have active speakers with built in amps), 
Most people are better off focusing on getting good speakers/headphones before worrying about amps/DACs, the $10ish iPhone DACs are "good enough" from a sound quality perspective.
Inexpensive amps do wonders. And onboard is often more than good enough, though some implementations are lacking, with laptops being a quasi-common occurence and dirt cheap desktops also having some issues, sometimes. 

No disrespect sir, but what dac's and amp's have you used?  I know it is probably many and perhaps I had a bad apple dongle dac, but that dongle dac is hot garbage imo, I even hooked it to an amp and the characteristic's of the dac were basically as bad as the fosi dac/amp I tested.  I will say that I have done very little A/B testing but when I did a budget rundown, while the onboard did remarkably well, probably second out of all of them.... The apple dongle dac plus amp came second to last only to the fosi.  I was only testing bass response but the entire characteristics of both were hot garbage.  Maybe I need to get another one incase that one was faulty.  However on Amazon you can't search for it, I have to go to "buy it again" to get the product.

 

I can say without a doubt, even with my sub-golden ears that given enough headphones, dac's, amp's and dac/amp's you will see huge improvement's given the right can's.  I do maintain that onboard hold's it's own on a high end mb, but the clarity of a dac and the power of an amp can not be forgotten *edit: can's always provide the biggest impact followed by pad's*.  Remember however that this forum, in the context of audio....IS a consumer forum.  9/10 people asking for advice here don't want to be told to spend the same amount as a competent headphone on a dac and/or amp.  If anything this is where I submit to the apple dongle dac, as a way to prove for $10 that dac and amp's matter and perhaps spur someone into looking deeper into the rabbit hole.

 

I have $5k+ in desktop audio gear simply because that bug bit me and I'm #40+nowifenokidsnochildsupportnoalimony and a good job.  I work and sit at my battlestation, so every bit of my disposable income that doesn't go to fish or car's goes directly into my desktop setup.

 

I decided to go down this rabbit hole because for years I had a pair of "reference" headphones and at a micro center threw on a demo pair of Blue Lola's, I got them but can't wear them anymore.  Anyways when I started to listen to reviewers online I didn't know what key terms meant, so I sought out every pair that was an example of said term.

[Motifator]

They might be correct in saying their headphone did not play well with their board, but... isn't that technically blaming it on the boom boom? X570 Pro is not a bad board, and they actually downgraded it for the sake of this so called "audio upgrade". 

I wouldn't be surprised to see under professional conditions, both B550 and his X570 onboard ALC codecs to see perform more or less same.

You can't test onboard audio truly and %100 just by listening to music. You need equipment to see where the EMI is coming from. Professional equipment, be it.

There.

We done?

[cmndr]

9 hours ago, Psittac said:

No disrespect sir, but what dac's and amp's have you used?  I know it is probably many and perhaps I had a bad apple dongle dac, but that dongle dac is hot garbage imo, I even hooked it to an amp and the characteristic's of the dac were basically as bad as the fosi dac/amp I tested.  I will say that I have done very little A/B testing but when I did a budget rundown, while the onboard did remarkably well, probably second out of all of them.... The apple dongle dac plus amp came second to last only to the fosi.  I was only testing bass response but the entire characteristics of both were hot garbage.  Maybe I need to get another one incase that one was faulty.  However on Amazon you can't search for it, I have to go to "buy it again" to get the product.

 

I can say without a doubt, even with my sub-golden ears that given enough headphones, dac's, amp's and dac/amp's you will see huge improvement's given the right can's.  I do maintain that onboard hold's it's own on a high end mb, but the clarity of a dac and the power of an amp can not be forgotten *edit: can's always provide the biggest impact followed by pad's*.  Remember however that this forum, in the context of audio....IS a consumer forum.  9/10 people asking for advice here don't want to be told to spend the same amount as a competent headphone on a dac and/or amp.  If anything this is where I submit to the apple dongle dac, as a way to prove for $10 that dac and amp's matter and perhaps spur someone into looking deeper into the rabbit hole.

 

I have $5k+ in desktop audio gear simply because that bug bit me and I'm #40+nowifenokidsnochildsupportnoalimony and a good job.  I work and sit at my battlestation, so every bit of my disposable income that doesn't go to fish or car's goes directly into my desktop setup.

 

I decided to go down this rabbit hole because for years I had a pair of "reference" headphones and at a micro center threw on a demo pair of Blue Lola's, I got them but can't wear them anymore.  Anyways when I started to listen to reviewers online I didn't know what key terms meant, so I sought out every pair that was an example of said term.

 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/

I haven't tested everything but it seems fine based on this set of measurements with VERY expensive equipment and a listening check. 

The only times I've had issues with headphones, the issue was addressed with a better amp (either a portable amp or a 

It's possible I'm missing out on something but generally the differences between headphones/speakers dwarfs the differences between amps/DACs unless something is defective or underpowered. This has mostly been found with older Samsung galaxy phones and Lenovo Thinkpads that I've gotten from work. Moderate improvement from jumping to a DAC/Amp combo on the laptops, but "good enough" for me to be satisfied with it. Pretty "solid" jumping to an amp. As stated the HD800 headphones (I have the original non-s variant) are hard to drive. This didn't really matter so much with most other headphones. 

I'm also not chasing the last percent. Sometimes I'm lazy and I won't bother taking off my wireless headphones.