Do I need a sound card or a Dac+Amp?

[mach]

Bass overpowering and everything else is weak sounds like BS. If there isn't enough power, it clips. If output impedance is too high, the FR gets some fuckery (but the 600ohm version should be immune to high output impedance because its own impedance is so god-damned high). That's about it. Inaccurate FR, noise, distortion, these are things that can be kept very much to a minimum in a dedicated but <$300 solution. By minimum I mean not audible to anybody. These are also well-understood and measurable criteria. Go do some blind tests and come back.

 

Tube amps suck for fidelity. It's old tech. It's like using vinyl for music listening in an age where we have CDs. Or VHS when we have BluRay. If your amp/dac is changing the sound, very likely it isn't transparent, aka not accurate. EQ exists for a reason: So you don't have to apply your syrup to your pancakes but also your broccoli and soup and bread. I'm not sticking with old tech because the tube glow is pretty, because nostalgia, because it's esoteric, because of buyer identity or post-purchase rationalization. Did you know that the duped often defend the con man that duped them? This is not a competition to see who has better hearing or to see who can spend more and thus be the more refined audiophile. Designing a dac/amp is not an art. Making music is. If there's an art involved here, it's designing a transparent amp/dac for the least amount of money possible.

 

Powering a headphone, the mechanics of a tube amp vs a solid state amplifier or of a pair of expensive cables, these are all well understood science. Do your ears defy science? Well, psychology could be considered a science, so I guess placebo and expectation bias counts, right?

Well, you're welcomed to criticize people spending thousands in hi-fi equipments are being stupid. 

I was telling my own experience with my headphone, it was a very specific test and I stand by my result

my intention wasn't to prove any great theory, nor to show you get more by paying more, but to share my experience so people can take it as reference

How you're able to judge it with your brilliant calculation and science? Do you know what onboard sound i had? which amp I was using? 

Did you take the structure of my ears into account? How about the different way my brain cells are synapsed from yours?

If my experience was pure placebo, then you must be suffering from some even crazier effect to judge me wrong without knowing these.

 

I mentioned tube amp, that's because my better amp happens to be a tube amp. Why assume I get a tube amp because I think it's cool/beautiful/hardcore?

speaking of expectation bias and placebo, I actually tried many other more expensive equipments with fancier brand names than my much cheaper tube amp. I bought it because I thought it sounded the best to me. Or I can say it pairs with my headphones the best. I had to try those stuff because of my job at that time. So basically I wasn't expecting anything, just mindlessly trying all the gears. Am I defending the stuff I own? No, I didn't like the brand at all. I didn't like the place it's being made. I didn't even like the form factor. I was not shopping for an amp when I bought it. 

 

You repeatedly mention distortion, accuracy, fidelity etc. Funny enough I didn't mention even once my tube amp being more accurate than other. I just said it sounded better to me.

[BoredErica]

Well, you're welcomed to criticize people spending thousands in hi-fi equipments are being stupid. 

I was telling my own experience with my headphone, it was a very specific test and I stand by my result

my intention wasn't to prove any great theory, nor to show you get more by paying more, but to share my experience so people can take it as reference

How you're able to judge it with your brilliant calculation and science? Do you know what onboard sound i had? which amp I was using? 

Did you take the structure of my ears into account? How about the different way my brain cells are synapsed from yours?

If my experience was pure placebo, then you must be suffering from some even crazier effect to judge me wrong without knowing these.

 

I mentioned tube amp, that's because my better amp happens to be a tube amp. Why assume I get a tube amp because I think it's cool/beautiful/hardcore?

speaking of expectation bias and placebo, I actually tried many other more expensive equipments with fancier brand names than my much cheaper tube amp. I bought it because I thought it sounded the best to me. Or I can say it pairs with my headphones the best. I had to try those stuff because of my job at that time. So basically I wasn't expecting anything, just mindlessly trying all the gears. Am I defending the stuff I own? No, I didn't like the brand at all. I didn't like the place it's being made. I didn't even like the form factor. I was not shopping for an amp when I bought it. 

 

You repeatedly mention distortion, accuracy, fidelity etc. Funny enough I didn't mention even once my tube amp being more accurate than other. I just said it sounded better to me.

Last I checked, whether FR is being altered from one source to the next, whether distortion is at levels audible to the human ear, how much voltage required by a headphone calculated with a few simple formulas and double checking it with the voltage at which an op-amp clips, these are not related to your ears. If two sounds are being produced which we know cannot be differentiated by human ears at all, then we know no matter what neurons you've got (provided you're a human being), it will sound identical. That's by definition, what transparency is: An amp amplifies the signal with the power required, no more, no less, and then it gets the hell out of the way so you can listen you your music unmolested. If you want to tell me that you like the tube warmness, then you like the tube coloration, which is not accuracy. But if you're point is to say, so what, I like that coloration (despite my objections with your inability to grasp basic concepts like EQ), I don't even care about that. But once you tell me that a headphone can't be powered satisfactory by a "toy" like the O2, then you're talking out your ass in an non-subjective field.

[creatip123]

 

 

You can argue that onboard is a bad idea for an expensive headphone. But once you tell me that a tube amp is better for accuracy or that a normal, non-tube amp/dac which is costlier than the ODA/Odac/O2 can net audible gains in audio quality due to increased accuracy/power, then I balk. If you can't even side with that, then we have little to agree on. These are not open-ended, subjective statements. Save your tube tweaking and fondness of the warm tube glow and sound for another day, it's irrelevant. We're talking about fidelity and the ability of an amp to power a headphone, not your preferences for colored sound. Your neutrality is telling.

 

A tube amp coloring the sound isn't fidelity brought about by a stronger amp delivering more power which a headphone (somehow) needs, you know better than this.

 

 

Woah, turn down the gear. Never claimed anything about tubes, accuracy, fidelity, and whatnot. Most definitely, never claimed tube amps are better for accuracy (or said anything tube-related in this topic, for that matter), because they aren't, by a long mile. Tube amps give lots of coloration to the sounds. Some people like the coloration, others prefer transparency, that's just the way it is. I've written about this in the Aune T1 review. I said something like, 'if transparency is something you'd prefer, than the T1 might not be for you'.

 

Here, read this again, I only said 1 line:

 

but I do agree that amps somewhat got part in shaping the sounds, for better or worse. 

 

For better or worse, could be better, could be worse. Could be preferred, could be not preferred. 

 

Agreed, facts are facts. When we are talking about transparencies, minimal amount of coloration, and figures on the paper, then yeah, tube amps would rank somewhere toward the end (least transparent), that I agree 100%. 

 

Again, never claimed tubes are better for accuracy, or transparency. I prefer coloration of the tubes, and that's my personal preferences. You prefer transparency, well that's good for you. It's personal preference, and that's just it, personal. If everybody in the world have the same exact preference, then how boring would this world be?

[mach]

Last I checked, whether FR is being altered from one source to the next, whether distortion is at levels audible to the human ear, how much voltage required by a headphone calculated with a few simple formulas and double checking it with the voltage at which an op-amp clips, these are not related to your ears. If two sounds are being produced which we know cannot be differentiated by human ears at all, then we know no matter what neurons you've got (provided you're a human being), it will sound identical. That's by definition, what transparency is: An amp amplifies the signal with the power required, no more, no less, and then it gets the hell out of the way so you can listen you your music unmolested. If you want to tell me that you like the tube warmness, then you like the tube coloration, which is not accuracy. But if you're point is to say, so what, I like that coloration (despite my objections with your inability to grasp basic concepts like EQ), I don't even care about that. But once you tell me that a headphone can't be powered satisfactory by a "toy" like the O2, then you're talking out your ass in an non-subjective field.

Ok, so your point is a "better sound" means better fidelity, more true to the audio source, right?

Maybe you're right, if you listen to sound by staring at graphs generated by instruments.

Do you listen with your ears? at least I do, and I assume the OP does as well

you can ignore the fact that hearing is a subjective feeling and enjoy your way of music experience with fact and calculations

who can tell isn't "they sound the same" a placebo too?

 

If you feel offended by my word saying "odac is a toy", then I do apologize. I didn't put tons of thought in that statement. I do not think odac/o2 are bad products. And I do agree in the case of OP, an odac+o2 can be a great choice for him

[BoredErica]

 

Ok, so your point is a "better sound" means better fidelity, more true to the audio source, right?

Maybe you're right, if you listen to sound by staring at graphs generated by instruments.

Do you listen with your ears? at least I do, and I assume the OP does as well

you can ignore the fact that hearing is a subjective feeling and enjoy your way of music experience with fact and calculations

who can tell isn't "they sound the same" a placebo too?

 

If you feel offended by my word saying "odac is a toy", then I do apologize. I didn't put tons of thought in that statement. I do not think odac/o2 are bad products. 

 

Yes, I did feel offended that you called the Odac a toy. Nwavguy to me represents everything I love about audio. Note my siggy.

 

I don't really care to discuss subjective preferences for tubes or some other type of EQ, which is why I didn't. I care about whether a headphone is being driven properly. Whether enough voltage or current (and in turn, power) is delivered to a headphone to prevent malfunction is what I'm looking at. Once there is enough power delivered across all tracks a person listens to at the peaks of the loudest volume the listener wants, without clipping, an amp is driving the headphone correctly. Extra headroom isn't going to make a sound extra good.

 

I'm so, so tired of the "yeah they can get LOUD, but are they being driven to their FULLEST?"... That's not a question about subjective preferences for tube coloration, but whether proper power is given to a headphone. And it's so easy to mislead people with a question like that, it's infuriating. I don't want people chasing more powerful amps they don't want because they're afraid their headphones are going to waste with "just" a $200 amp. Instead the way you should've said it was, if you wanted to apply an EQ via tubes, then get tubes.

 

I also still strongly disagree that people who can't hear differences from onboard dac/amp to a discrete solution (aimed at fidelity... obviously if you're going to do tube EQ it will sound different because that's the entire point) have bad hearing. There just aren't that many differences to be heard. Relatively transparent gear is dirt cheap. If a headphone is clipping left and right because the amp isn't sufficient on an onboard solution, I can see where you're coming from. But such drastic changes in FR you were claiming to hear doesn't make sense. (I'm not comparing a 5 year old or older motherboard onboard sound to O2/Odac here, I'm talking about a modern-day desktop motherboard in one of the many enthusiast systems around computer building communities like this one.)

 

If you're that much into audio I highly recommend trying out various ways of software EQ. It's also free, all you have to spend is your time. If so many audiophiles like to tweak their audio so much, surely they will be just as enthusiastic about fine-tuning their favorite software EQ. I believe you will find that all you ever need can be done in software.

 

Woah, turn down the gear. Never claimed anything about tubes, accuracy, fidelity, and whatnot. Most definitely, never claimed tube amps are better for accuracy (or said anything tube-related in this topic, for that matter), because they aren't, by a long mile. Tube amps give lots of coloration to the sounds. Some people like the coloration, others prefer transparency, that's just the way it is. I've written about this in the Aune T1 review. I said something like, 'if transparency is something you'd prefer, than the T1 might not be for you'.

 

Here, read this again, I only said 1 line:

 

 

For better or worse, could be better, could be worse. Could be preferred, could be not preferred. 

 

Agreed, facts are facts. When we are talking about transparencies, minimal amount of coloration, and figures on the paper, then yeah, tube amps would rank somewhere toward the end (least transparent), that I agree 100%. 

 

Again, never claimed tubes are better for accuracy, or transparency. I prefer coloration of the tubes, and that's my personal preferences. You prefer transparency, well that's good for you. It's personal preference, and that's just it, personal. If everybody in the world have the same exact preference, then how boring would this world be?

The question at hand is whether an amp can drive a headphone. (And also, whether the FR coming out of your headphones change drastically from onboard with a 600ohm headphone compared to something like the O2/Odac. The answer is probably not.) We're back to my siggy again: LCD2 vs O2. That was the real question being posed. I went on too long about how tubes suck but to be honest that is a bit of a tangent. We can have a chat about EQ, but that's for best saved for another day. Thing is though, saying "I agree that amps somehow got part in shaping sound", I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Maybe I was reading your post wrongly.

 

The rest is probably best saved for Mach or not said at all.

 

Disclaimer:

I get crankier at night before I go to sleep.   

 

[steffen_anywhere]

impedance isn't the only thing, you have to consider things like sensitivity too

A very low impedance AKG (particularly some old models) can be incredibly hard to drive

 

Many people on this forum are like Linus, believe in the theory that onboard sound makes no significant difference from a proper audio source

They either comparing the onboard sound with some cheap arse, entry-level toy like odac and fiio, or they really have bad hearing

Not intend to offend anyone but the ability to hear isn't the same among every human

Some people are able to tell the difference

 

Also, on such a computer oriented forum, many people recognize "high-end" audio gears as something like the asus sound cards

they are just jokes in the eyes of hardcore audiophiles

i haven't tried those sound card but I auditioned asus' external dac like the one Linus has

it was so mediocre and plain that I hardly remember the sound signature

it's very technical and versatile though, not bad sound given it's price point

but it is not an enthusiast grade thing at all

 

Yes, true words, most people here do not really have the need for something super high end, and onboard audio these days is good enough as long as it is powerful enough. And as much as I appreciate Linus doing audio product reviews, they are only relevant to non-audiophiles as Linus isn't, as I see it, the kind of person who really hears every small difference.

[mach]

It seems the root of this argument is the term "drive"

The word 'drive' has always meant a bit more than "providing enough power" to me

Since I learnt about this term (in audio world), the ability to drive a headphone means " the amp/device can provide adequate power to the headphone without significant overloading", and I learnt that the audio signal distorts when the amp is overloaded

if this has created any confusion, then I apologize again for my incompetence in English. (It's not my native language)

when people say a headphone is not properly driven, usually what happened is clippings in the amps inside their device caused distortion.

The distortion is often perceived by human ears as some certain frequency region being weaker, hence the illusion of the amp not being powerful enough

But since not everyone in the "audiophile world" is as technical as you (me neither), they may not acknowledge the fact that the problem is caused by the input signal from the amp instead of the performance of the headphones. Describing such distortion as "not driven to the full potential" is very common. Again, this might not be the case in English forums. I seldom comment in English forums. Then I'm sorry if confusion is made to the OP or other readers of this thread. 

[BoredErica]

It seems the root of this argument is the term "drive"

The word 'drive' has always meant a bit more than "providing enough power" to me

Since I learnt about this term (in audio world), the ability to drive a headphone means " the amp/device can provide adequate power to the headphone without significant overloading", and I learnt that the audio signal distorts when the amp is overloaded

if this has created any confusion, then I apologize again for my incompetence in English. (It's not my native language)

when people say a headphone is not properly driven, usually what happened is clippings in the amps inside their device caused distortion.

The distortion is often perceived by human ears as some certain frequency region being weaker, hence the illusion of the amp not being powerful enough

But since not everyone in the "audiophile world" is as technical as you (me neither), they may not acknowledge the fact that the problem is caused by the input signal from the amp instead of the performance of the headphones. Describing such distortion as "not driven to the full potential" is very common. Again, this might not be the case in English forums. I seldom comment in English forums. Then I'm sorry if confusion is made to the OP or other readers of this thread. 

When an amp is overloaded, the distortion doesn't just increase, it totally explodes. That's called clipping, and when that happens often, your music is totally screwed. Motherboard onboard amps may be of dubious (or good) quality, it's hard to tell without some good measurements with equipment I don't have. While I have not conducted or participated in proper double blind trials for onboard vs Odac/O2 (and actually, I plan to start a blind test, albeit non-double blind), it is accepted that onboard sounds largely the same to something like the Objective (IF the motherboard is of decent quality and is recent, AND there is no clipping). If an onboard amp might be pushed near or at its limits with a given headphone, typically we recommend them to get a cheap aftermarket external amp anyways. I'm not recommending that people run DT990 600ohms on onboard. We also have to consider the price of the headphone. A person that can barely afford a $200 headphone isn't going to spend anywhere near that much on an amp because it's just not in the budget.

 

With the Objective, we actually have nicely measured data unlike most other amps/dacs (and, you'd be taking a risk on distortion if you were to buy many other amps due to this). Here is the Objective's THD+N graph compared to load:

A good number to strive for here is under 0.05% THD+N and the O2 meets and surpasses that goal with flying colors. When the distortion explodes is when you've hit clipping, which means you've hit the power limits. Note the almost straight vertical lines, that shows distortion increasing exponentially (actually, more than that). Don't clip, and you'll be fine.

[creatip123]

 Thing is though, saying "I agree that amps somehow got part in shaping sound",

 

 

Easy, every amps give their own coloration, whether it's wanted or unwanted, to the sounds, even O2. O2 is considered as one of the most transparent amp, meaning it's one of a few amps that give the least coloration to the sounds. Least doesn't mean it's zero, and most transparent doesn't mean 100% transparent. 

 

That's the meaning of 'amps got part in shaping the sound', in other word, the 'shape' of the sound differs between various types of amps, for however big or small the differences are. Sometimes or maybe most of the times it's so small that it's not discernible, but on particular amps and headphones, it's quite discernible. Even Fiio E10's built-in amp sounds different than the E07k. I've written about this a while back, tried with headphone plugged straight to E10 vs E10's line out => E07k's line in (hence using E07k's amp) => headphone. If anybody would like to try this out themselves, use the song 'what about now - Daughtry', that's the song I used and gave the most discernible difference between the two amps.

 

 

The question at hand is whether an amp can drive a headphone. (And also, whether the FR coming out of your headphones change drastically from onboard with a 600ohm headphone compared to something like the O2/Odac. The answer is probably not.)

 

Well, depends on the headphone, that statement (headphone's FR change, (maybe not drastically), from onboard with 600 ohms driving capability to something like the O2) can be true or false (disregarding amps' coloration for the time being). As you should have known, the term 'can drive up to 600 ohms' only play 1 part on the equation, with the other part being efficiency. Like I said, I'll be very surprised if any onboard with the almighty 'drive up to 600 ohms' can drive a HE-6 properly.

 

Experienced this myself personally, with HE-400 + xonar DG soundcard with a built-in headphone amp that 'can drive up to 150 ohms headphones'. Faltered badly above 50% windows volume. Whenever any songs got to parts of lots of lows and kicks, the volume started to 'sway', small-normal-small-normal, and keep doing that until there are less lows and kicks in the song. Logically, it got enough voltage to break the 150ohms barrier, but not enough current (hence, power) to back it up/maintain the stable voltage, to drive the HE400 properly. 

 

Second experience came with a small 9-volt battery powered CMOY I bought recently. Plugged to the HE400, 2 o'clock volume knob position gave the same volume as 4 o'clock volume knob (max), with the difference being, when it's on max volume, the song started clipping badly => this I chalked up as 'not enough voltage'

 

Now with that much of distortions (clippings included), I'd imagine it's categorized as 'changed FR'. 

 

Again, if we go back to coloration issue, of course it's 'changed FR', because that's the very definition of 'sound coloration'. 

[BoredErica]

Easy, every amps give their own coloration, whether it's wanted or unwanted, to the sounds, even O2. O2 is considered as one of the most transparent amp, meaning it's one of a few amps that give the least coloration to the sounds. Least doesn't mean it's zero, and most transparent doesn't mean 100% transparent. 

 

That's the meaning of 'amps got part in shaping the sound', in other word, the 'shape' of the sound differs between various types of amps, for however big or small the differences are. Sometimes or maybe most of the times it's so small that it's not discernible, but on particular amps and headphones, it's quite discernible. Even Fiio E10's built-in amp sounds different than the E07k. I've written about this a while back, tried with headphone plugged straight to E10 vs E10's line out => E07k's line in (hence using E07k's amp) => headphone. If anybody would like to try this out themselves, use the song 'what about now - Daughtry', that's the song I used and gave the most discernible difference between the two amps.

 

 

Well, depends on the headphone, that statement (headphone's FR change, (maybe not drastically), from onboard with 600 ohms driving capability to something like the O2) can be true or false (disregarding amps' coloration for the time being). As you should have known, the term 'can drive up to 600 ohms' only play 1 part on the equation, with the other part being efficiency. Like I said, I'll be very surprised if any onboard with the almighty 'drive up to 600 ohms' can drive a HE-6 properly.

 

Experienced this myself personally, with HE-400 + xonar DG soundcard with a built-in headphone amp that 'can drive up to 150 ohms headphones'. Faltered badly above 50% windows volume. Whenever any songs got to parts of lots of lows and kicks, the volume started to 'sway', small-normal-small-normal, and keep doing that until there are less lows and kicks in the song. Logically, it got enough voltage to break the 150ohms barrier, but not enough current (hence, power) to back it up/maintain the stable voltage, to drive the HE400 properly. 

 

Second experience came with a small 9-volt battery powered CMOY I bought recently. Plugged to the HE400, 2 o'clock volume knob position gave the same volume as 4 o'clock volume knob (max), with the difference being, when it's on max volume, the song started clipping badly => this I chalked up as 'not enough voltage'

 

Now with that much of distortions (clippings included), I'd imagine it's categorized as 'changed FR'. 

 

Again, if we go back to coloration issue, of course it's 'changed FR', because that's the very definition of 'sound coloration'. 

The HE400s are still pretty hard to drive. I am not surprised that onboard is insufficient. (When I was talking about FR change I was talking about output impedance - Should've been more clear. No matter how high it would be on onboard, the 600ohm impedance of a DT990 for example wouldn't mind. Obviously this doesn't hold true for all possible distortions... DT990 600ohm would cause clipping on onboard.) A properly designed amp is audibly transparent, that's what matters. I don't have the two Fiio amps to try.

[creatip123]

The HE400s are still pretty hard to drive. I am not surprised that onboard is insufficient. (When I was talking about FR change I was talking about output impedance - Should've been more clear. No matter how high it would be on onboard, the 600ohm impedance of a DT990 for example wouldn't mind. Obviously this doesn't hold true for all possible distortions... DT990 600ohm would cause clipping on onboard.) A properly designed amp is audibly transparent, that's what matters. I don't have the two Fiio amps to try.

 

Yeah, if put that way, then it makes perfect sense. 

 

An ideal amp should do just that, amplify the signal (amplitudes) with no changes whatsoever to the FR. Too bad in reality, I don't think it can be done. Maybe it got to the point where it's virtually transparent in our ears (or audibly transparent, this I agree), but still not 100% transparent. 

 

Besides, back to preference again. As long as there are people that prefer not-so-transparent amp, there will always be amps with heavy coloration on the market, due to demands.