Better sound from my PC

I'm skeptical an amp like that helps much if at all. It connects from your onboard sound to the amp.

If it connected to your PC with USB or HDMI like a full AV Receiver it's a pure digital signal going from your PC to the amp device.
 
Cally said:
My question is will I see a better sound quality if I buy these?
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no but you might HEAR it ;) i like Senn, some of my favourite heads have been from them. i also really like Koss. shark is right about that amp though, get a usb amp/dac to pair with better phones.
ps: what board you got? so we can know if the audio on it is
 
The amp is unlikely to make an audible difference, as long as onboard has enough power for the headphones at hand. Redirecting the amp money toward even better headphones will probably sound overall better.
 
My MB is a Gigabyte 590 I hope that helps and sorry I didn't include that info in my post.
The internet has so much information on it that finding the actual help you need to hard. Posting here has always been helpful unlike some other forums.
Let me post some of what I have been reading and ask for help on that info.
I read that using an Apple dongle as a DAC with PC37X headset that is all I would need.
What I would prefer is not having a mic on my headset. This is why I am now considering the EPOS H6 Pro headset.
I also read that these are a good sounding headset they benefit from using a DAc to improve them.
So that is where I am now.
 
if you prefer no mic id go with the Senns you have in your op and try them with onboard. they should be fine.
 
Unless your particular Gigabyte motherboard has a dedicated headphone amp, it's probably going to struggle powering 150 Ohm headphones like the Sennheiser 58X. A dedicated amp and dac will likely prove a greater difference in quality. Even something simple like a Topping DX1 would probably be a substantial improvement.
 
Since i have no free pcie slot i could part with my asus xonar STXII with a bag of OPamps to play around with.
 
OP Just a heads up, any USB connected DAC might result in some "noise" while gaming. I have AMD6700xt Fiio K5 pro (DAC/AMP) KaliAudioLP6 (Speakers) and when connected with USB I hear a lot of noise while gaming (Gpu on load) Same issue with GTX1650s. Eventually had to use old Asus Xonar (for it's optical out) to get rid of that weird humming/noise. Not saying it will happen but can.
 
Manofsteel said:
OP Just a heads up, any USB connected DAC might result in some "noise" while gaming. I have AMD6700xt Fiio K5 pro (DAC/AMP) KaliAudioLP6 (Speakers) and when connected with USB I hear a lot of noise while gaming (Gpu on load) Same issue with GTX1650s. Eventually had to use old Asus Xonar (for it's optical out) to get rid of that weird humming/noise. Not saying it will happen but can.
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That's actually odd, given the output is entirely digital until it reaches the DAC. Makes me suspect the PC can't keep a consistent audio output over USB (suspicion is either a poorly written audio driver or badly managed motherboard USB processing).
 
gamerk2 said:
That's actually odd, given the output is entirely digital until it reaches the DAC. Makes me suspect the PC can't keep a consistent audio output over USB (suspicion is either a poorly written audio driver or badly managed motherboard USB processing).
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It's neither. It's electrical, entirely, and depends on the equipment in your chain, a combination of "dirty" power via USB and ground loops.
Example: ROG X570-F motherboard > USB to SMSL M500 MkIII DAC > Rotel RC-970BX pre-amp and RB-850 power amp = No noise.
Replace Rotel gear with Acurus L10 preamp and A100 power amp = Noise.
Problem fixed with an IFI USB Defender+ for 50 bucks. Which really, all that does is isolate the power-over-USB connection between the computer and the DAC, and keeps the data connection.
 
voidrunner said:
It's neither. It's electrical, entirely, and depends on the equipment in your chain, a combination of "dirty" power via USB and ground loops.
Example: ROG X570-F motherboard > USB to SMSL M500 MkIII DAC > Rotel RC-970BX pre-amp and RB-850 power amp = No noise.
Replace Rotel gear with Acurus L10 preamp and A100 power amp = Noise.
Problem fixed with an IFI USB Defender+ for 50 bucks. Which really, all that does is isolate the power-over-USB connection between the computer and the DAC, and keeps the data connection.
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It seems like kind of a bad design if the DAC is getting power from the PC. It should just use the USB for audio and have a separate power plug on it. Then you plug that into a clean power source.

I personally use an AV receiver connected via HDMI from my PC. And the receiver is plugged into a sine wave UPS. It's a lot more expensive though.
 
An absolute ton of DACs are USB powered and/or meant to be used with laptops, etc. It's becoming increasingly common though, for them to offer a separate power solution. But part of the issue is also that it's not 100% across the board that you'll see an issue, it can be a nearly random combination of gear that causes it. Which makes it harder for manufacturers to test for or predict. If anything, the onus for this lays on whoever designed USB in the first place, since the noise is coming from the GPU, more often than not. USB as a spec shouldn't have allowed for passing that noise at all in the first place.
 
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voidrunner said:
It's neither. It's electrical, entirely, and depends on the equipment in your chain, a combination of "dirty" power via USB and ground loops.
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Yeah, with my external DAC, I'll still get noise via USB, despite the DAC having it's own power source. Thankfully optical takes care of the issue. I prefer using optical anyway since then I can still use my internal sound card for it's features, and run optical from the sound card to the external DAC. Most USB connections on DACs just give you a bare-bones interface with zero advanced features.
 
Personally, if it's for headphones, I like FiiO products.

They punch way above their weight class.

Honestly though, for a large set of headphones - I really like the mid range wireless gaming headphones - The logitech G Pro X (and G Pro X 2 if you have the money) are very very good.
 
Cally said:
My MB is a Gigabyte 590 I hope that helps and sorry I didn't include that info in my post.
The internet has so much information on it that finding the actual help you need to hard. Posting here has always been helpful unlike some other forums.
Let me post some of what I have been reading and ask for help on that info.
I read that using an Apple dongle as a DAC with PC37X headset that is all I would need.
What I would prefer is not having a mic on my headset. This is why I am now considering the EPOS H6 Pro headset.
I also read that these are a good sounding headset they benefit from using a DAc to improve them.
So that is where I am now.
Click to expand...
Does your board have optical out? SPDIF if so... get the atom (it is a banger by all reports I have read?) and the Senns and then get one of these for $20~ (FiiO D03K). I have one of these hooked up to my pc and use it to send audio to my DarkVoice 336SE tube headphone amp and a Creek OBH-11 I have zero complaints it is dead quite (no hiss or interference and it sounds good to my ears and compairing to other onboard / external dacs I have or have tried.)

https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-Essenti...40232&sprefix=fiio+optical+dac,aps,157&sr=8-1
 
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gamerk2 said:
That's actually odd, given the output is entirely digital until it reaches the DAC. Makes me suspect the PC can't keep a consistent audio output over USB (suspicion is either a poorly written audio driver or badly managed motherboard USB processing).
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No clue what causes it, is a known issue. Gaming PCs when GPU on load have some weird "noise". No known fix expect switching to toslink (92000khz max! :() ) OR Maybe XLR connection might fix it ( I don't have a balanced DAC with XLRs outs so can't say for sure)
 
voidrunner said:
An absolute ton of DACs are USB powered and/or meant to be used with laptops, etc. It's becoming increasingly common though, for them to offer a separate power solution. But part of the issue is also that it's not 100% across the board that you'll see an issue, it can be a nearly random combination of gear that causes it. Which makes it harder for manufacturers to test for or predict. If anything, the onus for this lays on whoever designed USB in the first place, since the noise is coming from the GPU, more often than not. USB as a spec shouldn't have allowed for passing that noise at all in the first place.
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True. Also the noise issue happens only when GPU is on load not otherwise. Non gamers will probably not face this issue.
 
It's hard to know if you will experience an improvement if we don't know what headphones you're currently using. Having said that, I think those are fine options that would be considered a nice upgrade over the basic onboard + cheap gamer headphone setup.

If you haven't already, it's worth looking into audio-dedicated forums as well (e.g. Avsforum or Head-fi). You'd be surprised at the large range of options in the world of audio, and the solution you'd potentially be the most satisfied with might not be obvious from the outset. Sennheiser makes very good cans (some of the best) but there are other interesting options to look into as well. Especially if you're willing to spend a little extra money for something that will last you a long time.
Manofsteel said:
No clue what causes it, is a known issue. Gaming PCs when GPU on load have some weird "noise". No known fix expect switching to toslink (92000khz max! :() ) OR Maybe XLR connection might fix it ( I don't have a balanced DAC with XLRs outs so can't say for sure)
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I suspect something like this might help. I also experience a ground loop buzz under load, and I've pinpointed it to my Minidsp when plugged into the USB.
 
Manofsteel said:
No noise while gaming also? I am assuming you have dedicated gpu.
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Correct. The issue didn't appear at all until I switched the amplification. Some equipment is more sensitive to it than others. And as I've said previously, it comes from the power connection via USB, which is active even if your DAC has an external power source. The fix, and it is a fix, is to use something like an IFI USB Defender+ which severs that power connection. Another approach, if one has the chutzpah, is to make your own USB cable, and not connect the power delivery wires to the plugs. The DC line blocker that t1337duder shared a link to above, will not, however, have an effect. For other ground loop issues, probably. But not for the one associated with USB DACs.
 
atarione said:
Does your board have optical out? SPDIF if so... get the atom (it is a banger by all reports I have read?) and the Senns and then get one of these for $20~ (FiiO D03K). I have one of these hooked up to my pc and use it to send audio to my DarkVoice 336SE tube headphone amp and a Creek OBH-11 I have zero complaints it is dead quite (no hiss or interference and it sounds good to my ears and compairing to other onboard / external dacs I have or have tried.)

https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-Essential-Digital-Analog-Converter/dp/B07L61JPQW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WLGX50IAD43Z&keywords=fiio+optical+dac&qid=1689640232&sprefix=fiio+optical+dac,aps,157&sr=8-1
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I do have SPDIF out on the board. The Atom was on my list for the 58's. For the $20 I'll add the Fiio. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
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voidrunner said:
Correct. The issue didn't appear at all until I switched the amplification. Some equipment is more sensitive to it than others. And as I've said previously, it comes from the power connection via USB, which is active even if your DAC has an external power source. The fix, and it is a fix, is to use something like an IFI USB Defender+ which severs that power connection. Another approach, if one has the chutzpah, is to make your own USB cable, and not connect the power delivery wires to the plugs. The DC line blocker that t1337duder shared a link to above, will not, however, have an effect. For other ground loop issues, probably. But not for the one associated with USB DACs.
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Nice and thx. That is a very expensive fix. Will XLR/balanced DAC fix it? I rather spend on that if it will.
 
I can't say that I think 50-60 bucks is an expensive fix, not compared to the cost of the rest of the equipment at least. I don't have any equipment that actually takes an XLR input, so I couldn't say.
 
voidrunner said:
I can't say that I think 50-60 bucks is an expensive fix, not compared to the cost of the rest of the equipment at least. I don't have any equipment that actually takes an XLR input, so I couldn't say.
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I've been reading online XLR connections can get rid of ground lop, not sure if this is ground loop or something else. Toslink limits audio to 92000 hz and that bothers me. My DAC is 384000 hz capable.
 
sharknice said:
I'm skeptical an amp like that helps much if at all. It connects from your onboard sound to the amp.

If it connected to your PC with USB or HDMI like a full AV Receiver it's a pure digital signal going from your PC to the amp device.
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It really depends on the headphones. With my Senn HD-650's I noticed that my headphone amplifier had more control of the lower-end of the sound spectrum. Bass was tighter and more defined.

Now... is it $400 better? :D It's obviously subjective. There can be a noticeable difference though.
 
Manofsteel said:
No clue what causes it, is a known issue. Gaming PCs when GPU on load have some weird "noise". No known fix expect switching to toslink (92000khz max! :() ) OR Maybe XLR connection might fix it ( I don't have a balanced DAC with XLRs outs so can't say for sure)
Click to expand...
For an analog signal that makes perfect since, as the EMS from the GPU could screw up signal processing. But for digital through USB? It's digital the entire way through to the external device, there shouldn't be any signal degradation. That's why I suspect poor drivers/audio processing.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
It really depends on the headphones. With my Senn HD-650's I noticed that my headphone amplifier had more control of the lower-end of the sound spectrum. Bass was tighter and more defined.

Now... is it $400 better? :D It's obviously subjective. There can be a noticeable difference though.
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So headphone amps can do three basic things (I'm not saying this is all they do but the most important things):

1) Moar volumes! An amp can increase the voltage gain of a signal, and thus make it louder. So if your headphones are high impendence or low efficiency or both a good amp can give them the power they need to get to the volume level you want. If you have headphones, and they work fine but just don't get loud on the port you are using, an amp is what you need.

2) Improve bass in particular. This happens when you have very low impedance headphones. Not only do headphones have an impendence, so do amplifiers and the way it works is that you need the output impendence of the amp to be a lot lower, 10% or less, of the impedance of the headphones. If it isn't, the amp is going to have trouble exerting proper control over the drivers in the phones. That has a number of negative effects, but the most noticeable tends to be issues with bass. It will get tighter, cleaner, often deeper with an amp that can control it. So you need an amp if the device doesn't have sufficiently low output impedance. How do you find that out? Very hard, most things don't say. You can test it, but that requires some setup and a multimeter.

3) Reduce noise. Now this is a heavily "it depends" situation as to if it will or not. There are plenty of cases where it doesn't, because the amp isn't filtering anything. In fact, it can very well amplify noise. HOWEVER there are cases where an amp helps, and that is mostly when you've plugged headphones in to a line output. Line outputs are low current, high impedance, and when put under the heavy current load of headphones, they can hiss. Put an amp in there to take the load, and that'll go away. Only works for a quiet source though, if the output just has hiss no matter what, the amp will amplify it, but if the hiss was because the headphones put too much load on it, it'll clean it up.

gamerk2 said:
For an analog signal that makes perfect since, as the EMS from the GPU could screw up signal processing. But for digital through USB? It's digital the entire way through to the external device, there shouldn't be any signal degradation. That's why I suspect poor drivers/audio processing.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of noise and signal propagation. Noise on the power lines very well can and does leak in to other parts of the circuit. All the digital signal processing can be 100% fine, but noise on the power lines can leak in to the analog side of the circuit and then you get to hear it. Good devices need to work hard to isolate their various parts to make sure noise doesn't leak from one to the other. Not everything does it well, and sadly cost doesn't always indicate quality in this regard. There are some extremely expensive amps, both headphone and power, that do not filter properly and are subject to letting noise on the power leak to the signal.
 
Sycraft said:
Welcome to the wonderful world of noise and signal propagation. Noise on the power lines very well can and does leak in to other parts of the circuit. All the digital signal processing can be 100% fine, but noise on the power lines can leak in to the analog side of the circuit and then you get to hear it. Good devices need to work hard to isolate their various parts to make sure noise doesn't leak from one to the other. Not everything does it well, and sadly cost doesn't always indicate quality in this regard. There are some extremely expensive amps, both headphone and power, that do not filter properly and are subject to letting noise on the power leak to the signal.
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So you're saying there is a bit of magic to those $10,000 power conditioners? :D

In all seriousness, and in my opinion, if your power quality is such that you can audibly detect its low quality - either your wiring is messed up in your home or you have a power issue with the power company. I would think that in normal power quality conditions, any decent system should be able to filter out any of the small irregularities/imperfections in the circuit. IE - you shouldn't need a power conditioner. That's what you spend the big bucks for, in terms of quality of electronics right?
 
gamerk2 said:
For an analog signal that makes perfect since, as the EMS from the GPU could screw up signal processing. But for digital through USB? It's digital the entire way through to the external device, there shouldn't be any signal degradation. That's why I suspect poor drivers/audio processing.
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One, the noise does NOT affect the digital signal. It has nothing to do with signal quality or audio processing. The noise travels via the common ground connection shared between the equipment. That's why switching to an optical cable, a NON-ELECTRICAL connection will eliminate the noise, and why cutting off the power and ground connection on the USB cable, either by a modified cable or a USB isolator will also eliminate the noise. Two, if you have a DAC/headphone amp combination device that isn't hooked up to any other equipment, you probably won't hear any USB noise at all.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
In all seriousness, and in my opinion, if your power quality is such that you can audibly detect its low quality - either your wiring is messed up in your home or you have a power issue with the power company. I would think that in normal power quality conditions, any decent system should be able to filter out any of the small irregularities/imperfections in the circuit. IE - you shouldn't need a power conditioner. That's what you spend the big bucks for, in terms of quality of electronics right?
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I probably shouldn't have used the term "power line" I mean the power lines inside the device, not the big distribution lines outside.

So the issue isn't normally with just regular AC line power. In most places if you hook it up to a scope/spectrum analyzer/whatever you find that it is pretty clean and close to a 50 or 60Hz sine wave with some harmonics. Now those can be an issue if not addressed in designs, they come through as hum and there are some devices that are bad about it. However where you see problems is usually in internal power distribution. You take the AC and convert it to DC, then feed all your components in your device. But if you just whack them all on one simple bus for power, they can make noise and leak in to each other. This can be audible, or it can cause other issues. Proper power filtering is part of making stable digital components too.

Another issue can be induced noise. Any wire works as an antenna as well and if something is producing EMF noise, it'll induce eddy currents in the wire. That again can cause noise in improper designs. Heck if it is powerful enough, it can cause it in proper designs too. If you get near a radio transmission tower you can find that signal getting induced in all kinds of things.

It sounds like it is a bit of both happening with the cheap USB device here. The power is coming from the USB 5v line. That is reasonably clean coming out of the PSU, but lives in a case with all kinds of electronically noisy stuff. The GPU is then generating a strong (relatively speaking) EMF signal that is getting into the USB power line. The device then isn't filtering the power it gets much, if at all, so that gets induced into the amp and thus out the headphones.

The simple solution is just proper filtering and/or isolation. You can find pro audio interfaces that run off USB power. The RME Babyface is USB powered and it is exceedingly quiet and clean.
 
Seen many of those "USB filters" tested and they are truly wonderful devices for...replicating the signal that goes into them out the other end. A lot of hi-fi mains filters are just signal replicators. No difference to the quality of the power comming out to what went in.

The design of the DAC itself should take care of it. I have a iFi Headphone DAC and its no hiss or noise off of plain old USB.

If you are using a separate USB feed for power, try a phone charger or get a USB data/power isolating plug to take out the data connections in case they cause an issue. But dont bother with USB filters. Not saying you might get lucky but doubtful.

That or slap some ferrite cores on the power cable, cheap to do.
 
Audio and noise are always a pain. I have an external dac going to my active speakers and depending where my phone is on my desk i can hear when it pings the tower. Ferrites and shielding dont help, phone orientation does though, if its flat on the desk it interferes, if it is oriented vertically it will not. But I have a 3d printer on the same power as my pc and when that is running, nothing comes through the audio but the led lamp on the desk will have a slight shimmer in sync with the 3d printer heater.

Its like car noises, just turn up the sound till you dont hear the crap anymore lol.
 
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