LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6lemy5 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 3:40 AM

See that's what I was thinking. It's a brand new pc (built it mid December 2022), with an Asrock z790 Motherboard. I'm not for sure on exactly how this whole dac/amp deal works but from I read I didn't think id notice much of a difference. But I was proven wrong. Why? I dont know. But i also dont care because its beautiful and im excited as hell for the Beyer's to show up haha

Toronto-Will t1_j6lfmre wrote on January 31, 2023 at 3:48 AM

Are you listening louder? Louder sounds better. Not great for your hearing though, you have to be careful with it.

LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6lhno5 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 4:05 AM

I'd say a slight bit louder than just out of the pc. Which I'd listen to music on full volume before, both windows and whichever midea I was listening too. On the DAC I'm at 50-55%. I did however test how loud they would get, and I'm glad I took the headset off for that test.

Zooka92 t1_j6m3aln wrote on January 31, 2023 at 7:59 AM

In theory there shouldnt be that great of a difference, the thing that sucks most with onboard audio is the high output impedance, which could cause some bass bloat with low impedance headphones.

However, I would be carefull with that Fosi DAC tho, it might actually change the sound. I had the fosi k5 pro, which is related to the Q4. The K5 pro noticeably changed the frequency response, reason for that are the bass/treble knob. even when the bass and treble knob are in neutral position, the frequency response isnt flat, it still had less bass and treble than it should have.

That may make a bass/treble heavy headphone like the cloud2 more neutral, which could be interpreted as better sound, but can make properly tuned headphones like the dt900 pro x sound worse.

Honestly, i would just avoid all dacs with treble/bass knobs and would probably not get anything that hasnt been properly tested by a 3rd party.

Framed-Photo t1_j6m38my wrote on January 31, 2023 at 7:59 AM

I'm not the person you were replying to, but I wanna re-iterate the audio enhancement stuff built into windows.

Amps/dacs are not a new tech, and considering you have a recent motherboard there should NOT be this big of a difference between your new amp and the on-board audio, especially not with a gaming headset.

Go to the windows control panel, search sound, click the sound options, under the playback tab find your on-board audio, click it then hit properties, then check each tab to make sure your settings are correct. Specifically, go to the enhancements tab and disable ALL of them, and go to the spatial sound tab and make sure that's off too. Anything else that's not pure volume control that you might find, also turn it off. You can also go to the advanced tab and change the sample rate and bit depth to something higher but as long as it's not commicaly low it shouldn't be making a difference.

Do this for the on-board audio, AND the new dac/amp you have. My guess is that one of them has some enhancements on that's changing your sound. If it's not in this control panel setting, then there might be an audio suite of some sort for your motherboard.

LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6mn0er wrote on January 31, 2023 at 12:22 PM

I never ended up checking the onboard audio settings when I was doing the back and forth. I did look at them when I was using the Q4 and spacial sound and all enhancements were off. And the sample rate was I think 24bit 48000hz. I could be mistaken on those numbers though. I'll have to took into that today after work. Seeing a few of you saying I should notice any difference has me thinking I had something wrong in the first place with the factory windows settings. Granted I never changed them. Or even looked at them for that matter. But definitely curious on if it's something I can show my friends to help them get better audio with their current headsets too. But that brings up another question, would this kind of thing make a difference for a usb headset?

Framed-Photo t1_j6mtyt5 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:27 PM

If it's a USB headphone then that means the headphone has it's own DAC and amp built into it. That would also mean that you can't plug it into the amp you bought though so I'm assuming that's not what you have haha.

Regardless, for any of these devices you're gonna want to make sure any audio enhancements or spatial audio things are off. You can do that even on a USB headset.

LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6mu919 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:29 PM

Thats good to know. I'll have to have my roommate look into it with his USB headset to see if he can get any sort of changes. But I would also assume that a USB headset still won't have the "power" of an external DAC right?

Framed-Photo t1_j6n2hc8 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:33 PM

Any headphone that uses a headphone jack is analog in nature, and needs a separate digital to analog converter and an amp. That's what you bought as an external amp and DAC, and it's also what's built into your computer past the headphone jack. They're functionally both the same thing. If you were using just a vinyl player for example, you don't need a DAC at all as there's no digital signal to convert to analog. You'd just need the amplifier.

A headphone that uses USB as the interface has an internal amp and DAC. It's doing the work of your external amp and DAC, just inside the headphone, which allows you to plug it in with USB. It's still having to convert the digital signal to an analog one and amplify it, but it happens inside the headphone.

I get it. I understand now.

1trickana t1_j6ldrbj wrote on January 31, 2023 at 3:33 AM