Do i need to buy a external DAC if i already got a integrated amp + BS speaker ?

[grunthos]

Hello, Also i have double thoughts about whether to go for a sound system or not. Yesterday spent more than a hour researching about room acoustics and found that my room is not good for providing minimum interference. Rooms are not perfect rectangle in dimensions, also windows is also a problem. However i also saw a headphone audiophile setup like ATH-M50X + Fiio e10k DAC for my laptop music. I'm thinking of this path because i think my room acoustics is bad or not good for an hifi system

Hahaha you are overthinking it
The advantages of bookshelves are that you aren't tied to your chair like you are with a headphone.

If you like the sound of the Boston A26s, go for it
Headphones, esp the heavy ones like M-50X, are difficult to listen for long hours because of the heavy clamp they have.

Don't worry about getting everything perfect in your first system - no one does
(unless you have lakhs of money and can hire someone I suppose )

 

[greenhorn]

depends on your onboard sound. if your laptop has a realtek chip, then you certainly need a DAC. else you can live without it for a while

 

[shibashis]

Room acoustics?
Start listening to music first, in time the 'worry' about the perfect sound and all things that are associated with it will make their way into your head quite spontaneously!
Buy and enjoy the setup you can afford now, we all start that way, build as you go and can afford. Headphone setup can be fantastic but is not in my opinion perhaps always the most practical.

 

[DesiAudiophile]

Gentlemen, I feel like i unearthed a diamond treasure. You people are the treasure. I wish i found this forum long before , my audiophile knowledge would have vastly improved.So much support in a very short time.Thank you all for the flooding advice.
Here are all the tweaks i did

1) Eliminated external noises and Interference - Moved my laptop to an AC room b'cos the fan in the previous room was noisy.Closed all the doors,windows and no fan.Listened with only AC in the night time 12 or 1 am. It was like pin drop silence, I heard some subtle notes in the songs

2) Replaced mp3's with FLAC's - This is the change that improved the audio quality drastically. Phil Collins - In the air tonight mp3 version is completely different in FLAC version. I noticed an echo to his voice which i have never heard before which i heard in FLAC and i felt like wow cos this song i felt like i'm listening to it for the first time even after i listened to it for like 100 times

3) Best Audio Optimization Tutorial - Followed this guide religiously. Literally tweaked laptop power to high performance, changed settings to high performance,Removed un-necessary softwares and running softwares,Disabled networks (no internet when listening),Disabled anti-virus,firewall and tweaked some settings in the registry

4) Changes music playback software & Installed optimization softwares - I switched from iTunes to foobar2000 and indeed the music was much better with it. Also tried messing with my Dolby Home theater V4 music mode adjusting the EQ, disabling surround virtualization and doing some tweaks

So this is my day 3 in this forum and what all im doing is to find a way to improve music without any investment. Now i just improved my quality of music by 30-40% and sound seems to be much better. I could notice very subtle notes for the first time to the songs i've been hearing for like 100 times like Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight and was blown away yesterday night!

Now I'm spending time reading different music codecs, how to rip CD's, messing with Equalizers etc. .Any more suggestions like this for improvement please share, I Saw software enhancers like Jriver,Jplay,Fidelizer,Audio Optimizer,Roon etc.. Any opinion on these softwares and have anyone noticed any improvement with it ?

 

[rikhav]

Hi
Please take it easy

You are trying to achieve too many things too soon
This will lead you no where
Let all information come to you in due course of time

Even a baby takes 9 months to be ready to be born and come in the world

 

[shibashis]

Bravo! You have been doing some serious reading!
mp3 to FLAC, now that you are converted you will not get back to compressed music unless it is for cell phones.

I am not a big fan of equalization, granted with some music a synthetic tweak like that will provide improvement or produce 'likeable' music but with too many options sometimes it gets difficult to ascertain how the track was meant to sound.

 

[DesiAudiophile]

@rikhav Yeah, but you know i thought i was alone in a quest for quality music. My friends say music is all the same and there is nothing you can do to improve the quality other than listen to lame mp3 128kbps bitrate with 44/16 using some roadside earphones. I was frustrated and when i reached here I felt like i was into a new world with like minded people on a quest for better audio quality. Ok 3 days and i learned so much, before that i even dunno the meaning for an audiophile

 

[DesiAudiophile]

Bravo! You have been doing some serious reading!
mp3 to FLAC, now that you are converted you will not get back to compressed music unless it is for cell phones.

I am not a big fan of equalization, granted with some music a synthetic tweak like that will provide improvement or produce 'likeable' music but with too many options sometimes it gets difficult to ascertain how the track was meant to sound.

Yea , MP3 is for cellphones and portable music players. Now i dont do multi task like listening to music and surfing because the new notes that i hear in the old music is pulling me in and i just dedicate 20 mins a day in the late night , listen to my favourite songs in flac lossless and some of my most favourite songs in WAV. I just feel like floating in the air hyeah:. Yeah i didnt tweak that much, it's a slight tweaks in the EQ but thanks for sharing your opinion, i should also listen how a track is meant to be sounded