What Does It Take To Turn The PC Into A Hi-Fi Audio Platform?

[mechan]

Excellent and thorough review, which in itself is very, very commendable. Your preliminary conclusions was for pop music and for the headphones out. Remeber sound quality is dependent on the recording! Consider redoing the test with ACOUSTIC classical music for reviewed high resolution recordings including violins, recorded live in a concert hall. It'll be a lot of work, but it'll probably (at least in my experience) more revealing of any differences.

Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances on page 15 didn't work for you? Was trying to mix and match genders to cover quite a range of genres.

 

[mechan]

I've come to consider myself an audiophile, hell, i was raised by an audiophile... it's in the blood i guess. I always thought my ears were bad, cause i couldn't tell the difference between a mid ranged sound system and a high one. I COULD tell the difference between good and bad speakers, but almost never could tell any difference between the sound systems themselves. I was always puzzled by this, until a series of recent articles i've stumbled upon in the last 6 months. Most were at low trafic sites (notably tekreport), but they had been pointing out past 44hz/16bit it was pretty hard for the human ear to hear much of anything. Glad Tom's is backing these assertions up, it makes a lot of sense to me, as it seems to back up my own experience. Great article. Bravo.Now we need some objective measurements of speakers and headphone quality. (not that i'd ever use headphones)

Thank you ingtar33!

 

[mechan]

Technically this is a good review and, in most aspects, audio professionals would agree with it. But ...As a professional clarinetist and audio engineer, I know that acoustic instrument recordings (classical and jazz) are the areas that we must stress and nitpick to learn what equipment truly excels. Why? It places the greatest demands on fidelity.Sure, most people listen to rock, hip hop, rap, and whatever so somebody might argue that acoustic music is irrelevant. Well, to him it is. But an accurate equipment review must give much more weight to acoustic instruments to be truly valid.Frankly, I am pretty happy that, given the material used for testing, this review came to pretty decent conclusions.

Thank you for your kind words!

Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances on page 15 wasn't good for you as far as classical music was concerned?

 

[BoredErica]

To be honest, I large majority of my audio collection is FLAC. I don't even care if I can't hear the difference (Asus STX Essence, x2 Rokit 6 G2). It makes me happy inside, it's like collecting stamps. Knowing I have the best makes my subconscious happy.

 

[mechan]

*facepalm*Inexcusably, this has to be one of the poorest (if not THE poorest) article I have ever read on Tom's Hardware. I applaud Filippo (the author)'s effort in putting the tests together, and I appreciate his open admission that he is not an audio enthusiast in any way. But to dismiss the medium and high end audio gear as little better than the $2 onboard stuff is just absurd. In some ways, it is akin to having grandma saying how her base model Corolla is no different than Porsche 911 since she drives them to the supermarket just the same.As a head-fi enthusiast myself, I can 100% assure you that are magnitudes of difference between your onboard sound card and what $2000 can buy. As a matter of fact, even at the $2, $200, $500, $800 price points, the difference in audio quality is *HUGE*.For anyone who is seriously interested in quality head-fi audio, instead of wasting your time reading through this particular article (and worse, be swayed by its conclusion in any form or way), please do yourself a favour and head over to http://www.head-fi.org/. The community there is friendly and helpful, and will offer you real, useful, and quality insights to help you get the most out of your audio $$$.Head-Fi doesn't have to be expensive to sound good -- you just have to know how to spend your dollars.

Traum thank you for your kind words. I think what we're saying here is that despite us looking at a particular Porsche and imagining it lapping Nurburgring faster than a particular Corolla, we actually took them both for a drive and the results were that the lap time was the same. That obviously isn't a fair comparison though as, in practice, the Porsche DOES lap the track faster.

Not in our tests though. And we welcome additional tests similarly rigorous to make a different point than we are, if that turns out to be the case.

 

[mechan]

There's a lot of things to mention on here, but the main is that there is no attempt to isolate any aspect of performance with a device. The main thing you are testing here is how well does the headphone amplifier section of a specific device perform with the pair of headphones you have on hand. You'd need an external amp that could be adjusted for each device to actually test the audio circuitry and not the headphone amplifier section.There's also a lot of terminology that is off. "and advanced lossless compression schemes like FLAC, ALAC, and AIFF, the latter of which can halve the size of an audio file with no quality loss whatsoever." AIFF is raw, uncompressed PCM. The other two can reduce the file size in half with no loss in quality, AIFF is just PCM with metadata.Also, DVD-Audio is a media format, not a file format. It it high-resolution PCM using Meridian Lossless Packing. Files from HD Tracks are available as WAV, AIFF, ALAC and FLAC but not MLP. High-resolution PCM would be the correct term for it as well.You're also assuming that every single vendor has totally accurate specs on their products, and that they all measure them the same way. Looking at them now I can see some are using different measurements for the same value, and some aren't specifying how they got to a certain measurement. I don't think if we saw a monitor that promised "10,000,000:1 Contrast Ratio" we'd say "It's on the specs page, so just look there" instead of measuring it.It seems that everything is left to subjective music memory with no objective measures done, and only subjective testing that is introducing too many variables. There's too many unknowns for me to really pull any actual conclusions out of here except "With my headphones, I couldn't remember hearing a difference"

Your observations on AIFF, DVD-Audio and "High Resolution PCM" are absolutely correct and we'll revise / stick to those in the future.

The testing of DAC+AMP section was by design in these tests.

In terms of "hard" measurements, we asked Audio Precision for a SYN2700 series on loan. Assuming we receive it, then we could certainly do interesting things with it.

 

[mechan]

Wow. Just wow. Filippo, you have opened a can of worms with this review...As an audio professional, in the industry over 25 years, I mostly agree with your conclusions and have for 15 years.

Thank you sir! Glad you appreciated it.

 

[DLD_SWAGG_]

As a musician/recording engineer/ producer myself, the difference in quality is sooooo undetectable to most consumers that it doesn't matter what equipment they're using, as long as they have good/decent headphones/speakers, they don't care. Subtle differences in anything leading up to the speakers/headphones doesn't really matter to the majority of consumers

 

[mechan]

What an awesome article!

Thank you SpeedyVV!

 

[mechan]

Very interesting and worth reading article in T.H. for a long time. I'm waiting for the follow up of the low-ohm headphone results.
But one concern is on the test tracks. Are the blind test listeners familiar with those test tracks? If not, they might not be able to reliably distinguish the DAC/Amps apart. If listeners are not familiar with the original source, how could they know they're listening to a lower quality vs higher quality playback?
Part of this concern arise out of the Listeners' comments. I did not see words like 'natural character', 'harshness', 'bright', 'dark', 'warm/smooth', 'relaxed', 'detailed', 'fatigue', 'resolving', etc...
you get my point?

Thank you for your kind words.

Yes, we're quite familiar with the tracks... we essentially picked our favorites in a few genres .

 

[rpmrush]

Such a well written, honest, and humble article. Read every page with interest and I have low audio standards. Great article!

 

[rpmrush]

Such a well written, honest, and humble article. Read every page with interest and I have low audio standards. Great article!

 

[mechan]

Such a well written, honest, and humble article. Read every page with interest and I have low audio standards. Great article!

Thank you rpmrush!

 

[Tanduri]

Nice try, but it's not surprising that if you didn't hear a difference between, for example, the 176.4 and 44.1KHz renderings of the RR Symphonic Dances through decent playback electronics and speakers you'd come up with the erroneous conclusions you've presented here. Those differences are clearly, not subtly, evident to one's ears under those conditions. As are the differences between the same recorded performances on DSD64, DSD128, and DxD downloads on the one hand and everything from 16/44.1 to 24/192 on the other. Same with the distinctively audible differences between a $2 sound card and a well-engineered standalone USB DAC. Among other considerations, your analysis ignores jitter and RFI (a real issue in the PC environment) as factors in what reaches the amp and speakers following D/A conversion. We'd all like to save money, but if you're going to do PC audio right as a vehicle for serious listening, you can't shortcut the way your article suggests.

 

[aidynphoenix]

at one point i noticed that a mp3 i had burnt to a cd sounded better through my cheap cd player than the mp3 file being played through my computer, i then knew it could be better. it was all through the same stereo. i started playing the song on both the cd player and computer at the same moment, and was able to switch inputs instantly on my preamp.. the cd player impressed me, it was more detailed than my computers onboard sound. i felt regret that i had been missing out on so much for so long. but without good speakers and good stereo equipment i might of not of been able to hear any difference. using Yamaha Ns1000 monitors, Aragon4004 mk2 power amplifier, Emotiva XDA-2 DAC/Preamp. its a very revealing setup, the differences between loss-less and mp3 are dramatic! i am picky when it comes to sound.. i even turn off lights because the hum they make bothers me. my entire computer build was designed around it being "SILENT" it also really depends on what kind of music you listen to also.. if you listen to rap/pop/dubstep music.. it doesn't really matter. don't waste your money. with computer generated sounds, we don't really know what it is supposed to sound like. if you listen to music which has natural instruments, such as a trumpet, violin, or piano.. audio accuracy is far more apparent and important. but, if it is a song that you are not very familiar with, you wont remember what you heard clearly enough to hear differences in the first place.. if you used one DAC for several months,, than suddenly switched to a different DAC, then you would probably hear differences. without becoming accustom to a particular sound or DAC for a period of time, you will think that it all sounds the same.. just like this article is suggesting.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yeah, but it depends on how you compressed the MP3. Of course it's going to be crap if you've done it through a 64kb/s encoder.

 

[trog69]

When I got done upgrading my PC for gaming, I decided to tackle the lame-O sound system. For less than $800 I bought a refurb. Sony 7.1ch receiver with built-in DAC, a pair of vintage KEF dual-8"driver mini-towers, a set of B&W 601 bookshelf speakers (Both used) and a Polk Audio 12" 300w powered subwoofer, and I have it running through the FiiO Alpen E17 DAC/HP amp-to complete the DAC handshake. ( I already owned the FiiO, so add another $130 for that): http://s647.photobucket.com/user/trog69/media/Tuneageandgaming_zps01a9d793.jpg.html

 

[jasonelmore]

The industry has known this for years, i'm glad they are starting to admit it. Sound cards used to be all over the place. 10-15 models per year would get released by Creative. I used to see them in walmarts, and gamestops, but now its hard to even find one online.ahh the times are changing.

 

[pseud0nym0us]

Very nice. There was mention of the loudness wars and DRC. It's kinda TL;DR. Just gotta find the time and patience to read the whole thing later.

 

[ivyanev]

While great article it misses some details in using the cheap onboar sound card - background noise- when volume is high and no music is playing there is a lot of humming. In fact it is so loud it can be heared when there is very quiet song with volume of the software player dialed back a bit. Not to mentioned i had sound card (integrated) in which i could hear clicks from the headphones when i scroll the mouse wheel. I currently use external usb sound card from creative, and there is noticable difference.

 

[milktea]

Thank you for your kind words.
Yes, we're quite familiar with the tracks... we essentially picked our favorites in a few genres .

One more thing to add to my original comment...
I think most modern DAC chips have exceptional performance compare to the old ones. So the crucial part of audio quality comes from the Inter-stage & Output Amplifier, which determines the majority of the device's sound signature. With that...

So after comparing the ALC898 (on the P8Z77-V Deluxe) to the Asus Xonar Essence One using HD650, there is a clear difference in the presentation. There's more loose low bass on the ALC898, not as tight as the Essence One. This is probably due to the Integrated Amp on the SOC having 2 Ohms output with a max of 1.1Vrms swing. This causes the bass to be under-damped and out of control. Whereas, the Essence One has 7Vrms from +/-12V rails.

Also, there seems to be a faster roll off in the upper highs on the ALC898, making it seems somewhat warm compare to the Ess One, and not as bright. Ess One has a lot more crisp in the highs.

Overall, the ALC898 sound stage is not as wide, and the music was kind of thin, not as many layers. The music lacks impact, lacks excitement on the ALC898. The transient is slow, most likely due to the weak internal opamp in the ALC898. And if you read reviews on the high-ohm headphones, you'll find that they need higher Vrms to be able to fully drive it properly, otherwise you headphone would be under-powered. And you won't hear the full range of sonic experience that they're designed for. As for the HD650, some say 3Vrms is the norm to properly drive it.

I'm surprise your blind test didn't reveal that, even with the HD800. It should be quite obvious that the ALC889 isn't capable of driving such high impedance headphones. You can crank up the volume to make it loud, but it just won't perform well pairing with such weak amp.

* The Essence One was mod with replacing all the NE5532 with LME49720. It gives it more of an analytical sounds. And it pairs quite well with the HD650.
* The ALC898 actually has slightly better specs than the ALC889

 

[Sparr]

Were the files ripped from their media or were they being read from a disk each time? Reading from optical media is flawed and introduces variability into the testing. Hopefully the test was conducted with properly extracted audio files. Can this be confirmed?

 

[mechan]

Were the files ripped from their media or were they being read from a disk each time? Reading from optical media is flawed and introduces variability into the testing. Hopefully the test was conducted with properly extracted audio files. Can this be confirmed?

Sources are reported in the actual article. Mostly were from hdtracks.com and another website.

 

[geraldfryjr]

Note~On the ASUS cards Replace the opamp's with a LME49860's or some LME49720's and it will sound a whole lot More Better even still, Very crystal clear sounding after that!!! The LME49720's are the ones they send you for $50 in a kit from ASUS, So save yourself some money and order them for less than $4 each at Digikey you only need two of them!!

 

[yay]

Anyone that thinks there "isn't much difference in sound quality" between these devices obviously hasn't heard these devices in person.