# DAC (digital audio converter)



## rentonhighlands (Aug 20, 2005)

Anyone out there have experience using a DAC to listen to music. I am trying to make my music sound as best as possible. People say get a DAC. For example 
Amazon.com: Audioengine D1 Premium 24-Bit DAC: Electronics
has good reviews.

Would a DAC actually make the music sound better? Would it enhance the sound more then just the standard sound card? Would it enhance the sound more then just plugging a good quality pair of head phones using the headphone jack?

What are the thoughts from members of the forum?

Right now my set up is a pair of Sony MDR-7506 plugged into the laptop using the standard 1/4" mini headphone jack.


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

Renton,

The improvement that you'd get from adding an external DAC would be based on the quality of the DAC in your laptop vs the quality of the product you get. I recently upgraded the on-board sound on my desktop to a soundcard with a very good DAC in it, and I got minor but noticeable changes in clarity and the soundstage in general. It's probably safe to assume that you'd have to connect to something via USB, there aren't many laptops with a S/PDIF audio connection. I don't have any experience on that end, but technically at least the USB max data rate is higher than most audio files. (USB 2 peaks at 480Kbps, stuff like iTunes puts out 256Kbps.) Still, I got a good laugh out of the gold-plated USB cable included in that package:smile:

Unless the speaker/headphone output of your laptop is exceptionally bad (which many of them are), you'll will hear some improvements in the audio, it just won't change your life. You've already got a good set of headphones, so adding in a good piece of hardware into the signal chain wouldn't hurt. You just have to decide if it's worth the money.


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

Back in the day when I used to sell audio gear, the rule of thumb was to spend 2/3 of your budget on speakers and 1/3 on the rest of the electronics. What's this got to do with your DAC question? It's worth asking, how good are your speakers? (Or headphones if that's what you use?) You'll get very little improvement if your speakers are the weak link in the chain. In fact, sending cheap speakers very clean, high dynamic range and wide frequency range signals can turn out to be worse as they may not be able to handle it and begin to distort.


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## rentonhighlands (Aug 20, 2005)

What is a way I can compare between a DAC and my current headphone jack? How can I look to see what my current output is on my laptop sound card or on board sound output? On the DAC side what specs do I look at?


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

yustr said:


> It's worth asking, how good are your speakers? (Or headphones if that's what you use?)


The output listed was a set of Sony MDR-7506 headphones... not too shabby at all.

renton, You'd be looking for the specifications of the audio chipset for your laptop: Signal to noise ratio / total harmonic distortion (SNR at what THD), and maybe some other specs like bit count and sample rate (e.g. 24bit/96kHz).

Sadly, unless some good audio components were put into the laptop intentionally by the manufacturer, those specs may be hard to find. Unless you paid a lot of money for a multimedia purposed laptop, it's not unreasonable to assume you've got a cheap DAC in there. If you can't get specs, your next best tools are your ears. Test the same source through your headphones on your laptop, then on another high-quality audio device, using the same headphones. If the difference isn't noticeable, adding an external DAC would be an epic waste of cash.


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

Also, if you want to spend a little less, there's consumer-end stuff like Creative's x-fi line:

Stereo with headphone amp:
Amazon.com: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB Audio System with THX SB1240: Electronics


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