There is lot of confusion here. I need to make it clear.
As far as I can see, there is no way to get digital audio out of my Defy+. Therefore it is not possible to connect it to a DAC.
Audiodoc said - And a tread comparing the Motorola defy with a FiiO DAC
So I was talking about the difference between FiiO DAC and DEFY DAC. I NEVER said that DEFY has digital out. Neither about feeding phone out to DAC.
The posts on the forums have said that when their headsets were connected to DEFY directly(condition 1) and when their headset was connected to DAC(condition 2) People mentioned that directly connecting to DEFY output was good BUT after connecting to DAC output, sound was a bit better.
I said that condition2 might be producing better sound NOT because of DAC quality but because DAC was able to drive the headsets better than DEFY.
Last post says -
Directly connected to the phone, my ES7's sound pretty good, but with the E5 added, it really allows them to be driven properly and approach their true ability.
Not at all clear what you mean by this.
Compare phone/mobile player analogue out to analogue out of DAC ... connected to what? What DAC? Any phone/player? Any DAC?
I have clearly asked the active speaker owners to compare -
1) mobile good phone/ipod output(analog) i.e onboard DAC out=> input of active speaker
2) output of your favourite DAC => input of active speaker
and post the observations. As I wanted to eliminate as many variable as possible.
What has this comparison got to do with the original question.
1. The effect of power supply, RF noise, etc etc, on a properly designed sound card inside a PC is largely theoretical, and, whilst there is no harm in avoiding that theoretical problem by putting the audio interface outside the box, largely exagerated.
2. How is a phone going to provide a cleaner environment. Cell phone frequencies, GPS, all sorts of sensors, all crammed in a tiny space.
For starters, a PC does not have a continual, ongoing conversation with all the cell towers around it.
I think you need to reconsider your goal posts.
Original question was - How dedicated DAC can have better output than onboard DAC? and is there any real difference?
So apart from the quality of chip used being different, onboard DAC might be having these interference, noisy environment problems too, which is resulting in even bad output. And hence use of dedicated DAC is justified to some extent.
Phone would have cleaner environment than PC/laptop because -
1) though both use electronics, power rating, current rating is very low for a phone, compared to laptop. Also PC has larger magnetic and electrical components
2) unfiltered power supply is totally eliminated in case of mp3 player/mobile
3) radio station and mobile tower interference is everywhere. DAC of phone is no different here than a laptop/PC DAC. But because of point 1 and 2 above. DAC on a phone might have lesser interference than sound card. MP3 player would be the cleanest source of all.
4) Cellphone does not talk with cellphone tower continuously with same strength. And if at all that has to be considered then most laptops also have wifi adapter which is on. So again laptop has more noisier environment than a cellphone.
@others
I definitely agree that I need to give it a listen. reuenigma is extremely generous and helpful in facilitating me to do that. But this difference is turning out to be objectively unmeasurable and logically unexplainable(to some extent at least). But there is almost unanimous and large subjective difference.
Thanks all for showing the patience
