Will a PC Sound Card be better than a dedicated DAC

[haisaikat]

I am having a Denon 1911 AVR and specs say that its DAC has 100 dB SNR. Presently I have a HD6670 GPU in my HTPC which is connected to Denon 1911 via HDMI, So I guess when I play music via the HTPC it goes in digital format to AVR for final D-A conversion. I was looking at the specs of ASUS Xonar series of sound cards and most of them have SNR above 116 dB. So my question is if I put Xonar (one of the low profile versions since my HTPC case supports low profile cards only) sound card in my HTPC and connect the analog out to my Denon 1911 then will there be considerable improvements in audio clarity?

On similar note I see that a Musical Fidelity M1 DAC has SNR much less than the Xonar Cards, so will the Xonar cards give better performance than a dedicated DAC like M1?

 

[jls001]

Typical room ambient noise is about 55 dB. The most dynamic musical passages may be about 30 dB (my guess). Your AVR already has plenty of headroom above the room noise floor.

But high SNR need not be a measure which defines how musical that system is. The only thing that a high SNR tells you for sure is that that particular system has lower inherent noise. And perhaps that the circuitry is well designed.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Trying the dynamic range tests here will make you feel better about SNR.

Blind Listening Tests

While you're there, you probably won't be able to resist trying the other tests too --- it's very instructional.*

It wasn't until I came across this that I realised the essential truth about dynamic range: it is not about how loud stuff can go, it is about how quiet it can go! And if your environment is noisier than that, as jls001 points out, you just can't hear it anyway.

Credit: The Blind Tests site is one of the many that I either heard about here on Hifivision, or found on a surfing spree that started here. Thanks to the unknown member who guided me there

*Like I just spent another half hour on the site! :lol: Try this one. Another great dynamic range test

 

[haisaikat]

Hi Thad, so by how quieter the system can go do we mean the negative decibel value? Quieter the better? I am not willing to draw a thumb rule but want to understandat least on paper which one is superior DAC.

 

[hemantwaghe]

When audio superiority can be established on paper? That too with very few parameters?

Check any premium Tube amps specs ,on paper they are low powered , non neutral , very high THD ...yet listening proves they sound superior .....your take on this?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hi Thad, so by how quieter the system can go do we mean the negative decibel value? Quieter the better? I am not willing to draw a thumb rule but want to understandat least on paper which one is superior DAC.

I suppose you could start at either end of the scale, but, given that we do not want to go deaf (we don't want to, but there are lots of people that seem to!) then, starting at loud but not deafening we measure the dynamic range down from that point to where we can no longer hear the music. In theory, there would come a point where the music became inaudible against the background noise of the system, and that is why SNR numbers are published. In practice, the music is going to get lost beneath the sounds of our environment long before we reach that noise floor.

If we start with something audible and work upwards, our hearing will suffer damage long before we reach the upper end of the quoted dynamic range.

I am not a numbers man. I was thrown out of the maths class. However, sites like the link I just gave give us the opportunity to get a grip on the experience of those numbers.

Trying those tests again last night, I was unable to get better results than 48 to 52 with the AC on (it might have been worse with a fan). Using headphones and with the AC off, I could just force it to 60. The headphones are open-backed, and the actually-rather-quiet sound of my PC then becomes an issue. Personal hearing is involved too, of course: someone else sitting in my chair, with the same volume settings on my equipment, might well get different results.

Does this mean these specifications/measurements don't matter? No, I don't think it does, but it puts in perspective how much weight to give them, especially when deciding on an upgrade to equipment we already have. Given that I am happy with the sound of my sound card, would I change it because another one offered 16dB more dynamic range? Absolutely not: it is not going to be of any practical use to me whatsoever.

So, I think that, if you try the tests, you also would find that spending more and more money on 16dB of quoted SNR will not be worth it to you. Spend it only if something sounds better.

 

[haisaikat]

When audio superiority can be established on paper? That too with very few parameters?

Check any premium Tube amps specs ,on paper they are low powered , non neutral , very high THD ...yet listening proves they sound superior .....your take on this?

Please dont get me wrong, I am only trying to judge if adding any Sound
Card will improve my HT performance for music. The problem is that I cannot do the audition easily for a sound card with my setup. Hence starting with numbers for the time being.

 

[haisaikat]

Thanks Thad exact type of answer I was looking for, wonder if I can get a demo of a sound card based system somewhere nearby I will surely take the tests and then decide further, thanks for the links anyway.

 

[alpha1]

When audio superiority can be established on paper? That too with very few parameters?

Check any premium Tube amps specs ,on paper they are low powered , non neutral , very high THD ...yet listening proves they sound superior .....your take on this?

Perhaps because we know that we are listening to a Tube amp???
You know how expensive wines somehow tastes much better than an inexpensive ones.

 

[kumarab]

^^True that. There have actually been some cheeky experiments where big shot tasters have preferred the cheaper one (when put in the expensive one's bottle).

Tube amps sound different for sure, some like how they sound, some don't, just like how we used to play around with our EQ sliders on our tape decks as kids. Most of us had a soft corner for the "V" . "Better" is mostly a subjective term, and is prone to all kinds of psychological bias. To objectively deem something as "better" demands a point of reference. As it stands..the closest we can get to that is through the specs. No, not the ones published in the product catalogs, but real world tests.

 

[baijuxavior]

​

You know how expensive wines somehow tastes much better than an inexpensive ones.

 

[alpha1]

^^True that. There have actually been some cheeky experiments where big shot tasters have preferred the cheaper one (when put in the expensive one's bottle).

Tube amps sound different for sure, some like how they sound, some don't, just like how we used to play around with our EQ sliders on our tape decks as kids. Most of us had a soft corner for the "V" . "Better" is mostly a subjective term, and is prone to all kinds of psychological bias. To objectively deem something as "better" demands a point of reference. As it stands..the closest we can get to that is through the specs. No, not the ones published in the product catalogs, but real world tests.

Now regarding the question of this thread.
What is the source audio sample rate?
Which DACs you are looking at, which soundcards you are considering.

Keep in mind that soundcard also has a DAC ...
The difference is of quality.

 

[jls001]

Hi Thad, so by how quieter the system can go do we mean the negative decibel value? Quieter the better? I am not willing to draw a thumb rule but want to understandat least on paper which one is superior DAC.

Noise is an absolute value and not relative value so it can't go negative. No noise will be zero dB and anything higher than "no noise" will be a positive value higher than zero.

Yes, quieter is better from a system point of view. But as I said earlier, more quiet may not necessarily translate to more musical. How I wish there is some magic formula to make a device more musical!

 

[square_wave]

A very open ended question.

A PC with a sound card is not the last word in digital audio nor is some random standalone DAC.

The best studios work with purposefully designed workstations and make extensive use of state of the art outboard master clocks and standalone DACs.

If you have a plan in mind, share it and folks may be able to help you out.

 

[msagar]

Sound card or DAC

The Well-Tempered Computer

 

[haisaikat]

Okay one again, I am comparing ASUS Xonar ST with I think Texas Instrument chip for the DAC portion which I read online to be a heavily praised one and compared it with DAcs in and around 30K range like CA Dacmagic, Musical fidelity M1 dac, etc. Not comparing with those high end Naim DACs.

Source will be both 320kbps MP3 and 24/96 FLACs.