Hello, I was wondering what's technically the best device of the following for my headphones.
My computer motherboard Ga-Z170mx-Gaming 5 [Realtek® ALC1150 codec, TI Burr Brown® OPA2134 operational amplifier, Support for Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3]
My dedicated sound card the Asus DX [ASUS AV100 High-Definition Sound Processor (Max. 192KHz/24bit) 24-bit D-A Converter of Digital Sources: Cirrus-Logic CS4398*1 for Front-Out (120dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit), Cirrus-Logic CS4362A*1 for other 6 channels (114dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit 24-bit A-D Converter for Analog Inputs: Cirrus-Logic CS5361* 1 (114dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)] (I feel the Asus DX sounds a little more dynamic, the amplifier is definitely not as powerful)
Or my VSX-524-K [connected over hdmi] I just ordered a 3.5mm to 6.5mm for the front panel phono, haven't tried it before though for headphones, only used for my surround sound
 
Or stuff I don't own, are they worth my moneyjust considering sound equipment?
GA-Z270X-UD3 [Realtek® ALC1220 codec] - I don't own this but may buy if the 1220 is really better then the other options
Some ebay dac under 130$CAD [384khz 32bit]

chaython said:

  Hello, I was wondering what's technically the best device of the following for my headphones.
My computer motherboard Ga-Z170mx-Gaming 5 [Realtek® ALC1150 codec, TI Burr Brown® OPA2134 operational amplifier, Support for Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3]
My dedicated sound card the Asus DX [ASUS AV100 High-Definition Sound Processor (Max. 192KHz/24bit) 24-bit D-A Converter of Digital Sources: Cirrus-Logic CS4398*1 for Front-Out (120dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit), Cirrus-Logic CS4362A*1 for other 6 channels (114dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit 24-bit A-D Converter for Analog Inputs: Cirrus-Logic CS5361* 1 (114dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)] (I feel the Asus DX sounds a little more dynamic, the amplifier is definitely not as powerful)
Or my VSX-524-K [connected over hdmi] I just ordered a 3.5mm to 6.5mm for the front panel phono, haven't tried it before though for headphones, only used for my surround sound
 
Or stuff I don't own, are they worth my moneyjust considering sound equipment?
GA-Z270X-UD3 [Realtek® ALC1220 codec] - I don't own this but may buy if the 1220 is really better then the other options
Some ebay dac under 130$CAD [384khz 32bit]

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There is almost no music that is recorded 32 bit and 384khz. I made that statement as there are probably none so why bother. Could you hear the difference on a $130 dac?

buke9 said:

There is almost no music that is recorded 32 bit and 384khz. I made that statement as there are probably none so why bother. Could you hear the difference on a $130 dac?

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I was looking at something like this. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Musiland-Monitor-02-US-Mark-2-DSD-32Bit-384KHz-USB-Sound-card-Dac-USB2-0-/151896045429?hash=item235db5b775:g:Z90AAOSw7FRWVto6 
HDMI supports 1536 kHz audio sample frequency; there has to be some reason to allocate so much of the cables bandwidth for this audio sampling
Anyways 32 bit is a pretty popular recording option, overall I would image some improvement.
Although when using asio, all three of the devices I listed above do receive a 32bit 192khz pass through, although the asus DX has some clipping when I set ASIO in such a format
I do not notice much of a difference when setting asio for the headphones, although the VSX is much louder with this setting 
 

protegemaniac said:

 

 

I wouldn't worry about the ALC1220 vs what you have. It will have even less performance gains than going Z270 from Z170, which at least if you also got Kaby Lake means you'll be starting out with a slightly higher clock. The analogue output circuit after the DSP and DACs are what matters more provided you already have the DSP features you need.

 

Speaking of the analogue circuit and DSP, the headphone amp on your mobo is probably better than the soundcard's, which are known to have very high output impedance. If anything, what you think sounds more dynamic despite being less powerful (which is usually impossible, since dynamic headroom is made possible by more reserve clean power) is just the higher output impedance introducing an EQ effect to the bass, and it just has enough reserve power to not start distorting badly (or the EQ effect isn't bad enough that it's not even hitting their excursion limit).

 

On the flipside, if you use virtual surround that isn't built into the games you play, I don't think the Gigabyte board has such a DSP (although just double check). If it does, I'd say remove the sound card and all the related software and reinstall the motherboard's sound section software, and just use that. You just freed up a slot for SLi or a PCI-Ex SSD.

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I do not use virtual surround, I hear no benefit, it's more annoying than anything else, they use a terrible reverb, or they cut out sound and amplify others

Originally Posted by Chaython /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

HDMI supports 1536 kHz audio sample frequency; there has to be some reason to allocate so much of the cables bandwidth for this audio sampling

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Most cd music are recorded at 16/44.1 (no clue for games but I will assume the same bit rate). 24/96 will be fine . Can't help with DAC recommendations, looking for one as well.

protegemaniac said:

 

 

There is - from an engineering perspective, DSD (from SACD) and BluRay audio. Past those two, it has more to do with marketing than actual engineering. Unless you're using those exact same music formats there's no need for that kind of hardware.

 

 

It's not actually. For the most part recording and mastering are still at 24bit/96khz, including most BluRay audio tracks. SACD/DSD is encoded at 1bit/2884mhz.

 

 

 

It's louder because it's not getting any other interference from Windows.

 

 

 

It has to amplify sound closer to you and then make the farther out sounds softer, because in the real world, a gunshot by the guy guarding your flank from 2m away would be a lot louder than the gunshot by the guy attacking your flank 10m away from him.

 

In any case, since you don't use it, skip the soundcard and just use the Gigabyte mobo audio circuit.

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The difference in audio amplification changes when forcing 32bit to the receiver.
Both sound cards have multiple virtual surround sound options, the standard stereo audio sounds much more realistic and consistent. The game engines themselves are engineered to work well with headphones[no I never set headphones, I set 7.1(when available) and windows will down-mix it to stereo]. 
Most music [CDs] is in fact 16bit/44.1khz, however the modern upsampling is noticeably better than playing at that resolution
Modern games are full depth 24/192/7.1 I believe, It had over 20gb of audio, and only had 17 songs/ambients? Also only 15 weapons? So not very much diversity in sounds however a massive amount of data.

chaython said:

  The difference in audio amplification changes when forcing 32bit to the receiver.

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How? 32bit is digital stage, amplification is analogue stage. Even power DACs - ie, amplifiers that in the most basic terms use digital input then skip every traditional circuit between the DAC chips' output and the amp output stage - can't have "amplification changes" due to bit depth apart from how it's used in the volume control, which is why Wadia uses an upsampling chip to make sure that at just off zero on the volume control it will never be below 16bits.
 

chaython said:

  Both sound cards have multiple virtual surround sound options, the standard stereo audio sounds much more realistic and consistent. The game engines themselves are engineered to work well with headphones[no I never set headphones, I set 7.1(when available) and windows will down-mix it to stereo].

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Well you don't use the virtual surround anyway, right?
 
Also setting it to 7.1 and downmixing to stereo with Windows isn't any better than just setting the game to output 2ch audio from the start. The whole point in virtual surround processing was that, prior to headphone-specific audio in the games themselves, you could get the surround signal to play through headphones with positional cues. If you're downmixing with Windows might as well just set the game to regular 2ch audio output.
 
 

chaython said:

 
Most music [CDs] is in fact 16bit/44.1khz, however the modern upsampling is noticeably better than playing at that resolution

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There was a white paper before at the heyday of upsampling CDPs that discovered that while people perceive that there actually is a difference, more sensitive measurements discovered that what accounts for the audible difference is high frequency noise introduced by upsampling. Modern upsampling might have done away with that noise, but then that means there's no difference anymore when it's conducted in blind tests.
 
 

chaython said:

  Modern games are full depth 24/192/7.1 I believe, It had over 20gb of audio, and only had 17 songs/ambients? Also only 15 weapons? So not very much diversity in sounds however a massive amount of data.

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Maybe. Games I have so far have all their sound files at 320kbps in the folder. You'd still have to check that though - even my games have several gb size audio folders but it's all still in MP3.

chaython said:

The difference in audio amplification changes when forcing 32bit to the receiver.
Both sound cards have multiple virtual surround sound options, the standard stereo audio sounds much more realistic and consistent. The game engines themselves are engineered to work well with headphones[no I never set headphones, I set 7.1(when available) and windows will down-mix it to stereo]. 
Most music [CDs] is in fact 16bit/44.1khz, however the modern upsampling is noticeably better than playing at that resolution
Modern games are full depth 24/192/7.1 I believe, It had over 20gb of audio, and only had 17 songs/ambients? Also only 15 weapons? So not very much diversity in sounds however a massive amount of data.

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Why ask a question you have all the answers.

buke9 said:

Why ask a question you have all the answers.

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I don't have answers as to which component is TECHNICALLY THE BEST
I don't want "audiophile reviews" or "opinion pieces"  I want it based solely on the hardware, some people do tear downs where they detail the capacitors and chips
With that technical prowess is the only way to answer my question, the prowess and a comparison.
I would for example love someone to come in here and make a venn diagram to show the benefits.

chaython said:

I don't have answers as to which component is TECHNICALLY THE BEST
I don't want "audiophile reviews" or "opinion pieces"  I want it based solely on the hardware, some people do tear downs where they detail the capacitors and chips
With that technical prowess is the only way to answer my question, the prowess and a comparison.
I would for example love someone to come in here and make a venn diagram to show the benefits.

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Just because a dac has great specs doesn't mean much if the analog output is crap or the implementation of the dac chip it's self is not up to par. It can have the greatest specs in the world and still sound like crap. A 16 bit 44.1khz file will always be that no matter what upsampling you do to it and sound the same or maybe worse sometimes. I've seen people convert files to dsd like that would make it sound like a dsd file. The dac/amp you mentioned did not say that it does native dsd either it could be dsd over pcm which would be my guess as they don't say 2.8mhz sample rate or 5.6. The thing about 32bit is there is no music I know of that you can buy at the bit depth there might be in the future but I doubt it. The new thing now is MQA we will see how long that lasts. Not for sure what the muslink is about. People will give you audiophile like description of dacs as who cares about specs if it sounds good. I've heard many technically great guitarist that their fingers run up and down the fretboard with precision and speed but the music is lifeless without feeling or soul. So I'll take the one that sounds good.

chaython said:

  I don't have answers as to which component is TECHNICALLY THE BEST
I don't want "audiophile reviews" or "opinion pieces"  I want it based solely on the hardware, some people do tear downs where they detail the capacitors and chips
With that technical prowess is the only way to answer my question, the prowess and a comparison.
I would for example love someone to come in here and make a venn diagram to show the benefits.

Click to expand...

 
Well, the world of DACs is not just about specs and capacitors, resistors, etc. Implementation (i.e. the way digital audio is processed) matters more than specs. For example, DACs are generally divided into 2 categories: Delta Sigma and Resistor Ladder.
 
For both Delta Sigma, a higher end implementation uses in-house noise shaping techniques (using FPGA) instead of off the shelf DAC chips (e.g. Realtek, ESS, Texas Instruments, etc.), and this results to better sound than those off the shelf DACs with more specs (DSD1024, 1536 KHz PCM, 32-bits, MQA, etc). Analog stage part can also be "discrete" or "op-amp". Discrete analog stage is generally "truer to the source" than "op-amp" since op-amps have their own "sound signature" that is altering the original sound produced by the DAC.
 
Resistor ladder DACs are generally inferior spec wise to the Delta Sigma, but some people prefer their sound despite being less accurate than delta sigma (higher THD+N, more harmonics, etc.)
 
IMO the BEST technically spec DACs are of those with custom chips (programmed using FPGA) and a class A fully discrete analog stage.
 
The DAC shown below literally costs as much as a brand new car yet it only has a few small capacitors, but the chip is beneath the heatsink fins. The DAC chip inside is custom programmed using FPGA and the analog and headphone output stage is Class A fully discrete.

theveterans said:

   
Well, the world of DACs is not just about specs and capacitors, resistors, etc. Implementation (i.e. the way digital audio is processed) matters more than specs. For example, DACs are generally divided into 2 categories: Delta Sigma and Resistor Ladder.
 
For both Delta Sigma, a higher end implementation uses in-house noise shaping techniques (using FPGA) instead of off the shelf DAC chips (e.g. Realtek, ESS, Texas Instruments, etc.), and this results to better sound than those off the shelf DACs with more specs (DSD1024, 1536 KHz PCM, 32-bits, MQA, etc). Analog stage part can also be "discrete" or "op-amp". Discrete analog stage is generally "truer to the source" than "op-amp" since op-amps have their own "sound signature" that is altering the original sound produced by the DAC.
 
Resistor ladder DACs are generally inferior spec wise to the Delta Sigma, but some people prefer their sound despite being less accurate than delta sigma (higher THD+N, more harmonics, etc.)
 
IMO the BEST technically spec DACs are of those with custom chips (programmed using FPGA) and a class A fully discrete analog stage.
 
The DAC shown below literally costs as much as a brand new car yet it only has a few small capacitors, but the chip is beneath the heatsink fins. The DAC chip inside is custom programmed using FPGA and the analog and headphone output stage is Class A fully discrete.

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looks and sounds nice, where can I steal one?

chaython said:

  looks and sounds nice, where can I steal one?

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Better hurry.
https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Optical-digital-inputs-Silver/dp/B01GQIP11M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487398396&sr=8-1&keywords=2Qute

protegemaniac said:

   
 
Better hurry.
https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Optical-digital-inputs-Silver/dp/B01GQIP11M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487398396&sr=8-1&keywords=2Qute

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It's not the 2Qute haha. Here you go: http://www.head-fi.org/t/812314/chord-dave-dac