Will an external DAC improve music audio quality for me?

[Gamboge]

I have a motherboard with ALC4080 HD Audio and use Aria iems. My budget is under $150. If I buy something like the Schitt Magni+, will music sound better? I sometimes play games, but not that often, so it's not as much of a priority.

[bogi]

@Gamboge The best thing you can do is just to try something with possibility to return it. As Chris mentioned, personal experience is the basis.

 

My tips to try in your price range:

SMSL M300 SE

iBasso DC04Pro

FiiO K3

 

It is good idea to read Amazon reviews from real customers, but you still cannot take others opinion like 100% relevant for you and your IEMs. Try to find some common points which appear in more reviews.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Gamboge said:

I have a motherboard with ALC4080 HD Audio and use Aria iems. My budget is under $150. If I buy something like the Schitt Magni+, will music sound better? I sometimes play games, but not that often, so it's not as much of a priority.

The unfortunate answer is that it’s impossible for anyone to tell you it will sound better/worse/different. 
 

It depends on the type of music you listen to (EDM, Metal, classical, etc…), your ears, your perception, IEM sensitivity, music sources, quality of the motherboard and many other things. 

[Gamboge]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

The unfortunate answer is that it’s impossible for anyone to tell you it will sound better/worse/different. 
 

It depends on the type of music you listen to (EDM, Metal, classical, etc…), your ears, your perception, IEM sensitivity, music sources, quality of the motherboard and many other things. 

Aren't there objective numbers? Or at least a general consensus?

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, Gamboge said:

Aren't there objective numbers? Or at least a general consensus?

No objective data can tell you if music will sound better to you. Do you listen to 64 kbps internet radio streams of death metal and or well recorded high resolution classical with a lot of dynamic range? When you turn up the volume do you hear noise from the motherboard?

[Gamboge]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

No objective data can tell you if music will sound better to you. Do you listen to 64 kbps internet radio streams of death metal and or well recorded high resolution classical with a lot of dynamic range? When you turn up the volume do you hear noise from the motherboard?

I'll listen to lower and higher resolution audio at different times. I don't strictly stick to a particular genre or quality. When comparing the same audio played with onboard to with a DAC, is there no difference unless the audio is of a sufficiently high quality? Also, I do not notice any static or otherwise unusual noise when the volume is high.

[The Computer Audiophile]

An external USB DAC may have better specs and more power, but neither of those tell you anything about what you’ll perceive. In addition, the ALC4080 on its own doesn’t mean much. The motherboard designer could make it pretty good or terrible. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Gamboge said:

I'll listen to lower and higher resolution audio at different times. I don't strictly stick to a particular genre or quality. When comparing the same audio played with onboard to with a DAC, is there no difference unless the audio is of a sufficiently high quality? Also, I do not notice any static of otherwise unusual noise when the volume is high.

Good to know. 
 

Audio = garbage in / garbage out just like everything else. 

If you’re a perceptive listener the chances are good that you’ll enjoy a better DAC (given what you’ve stated). If you only listened to low quality dynamically compressed death metal, then it may not matter. Nothing wrong with that though. 
 

You’ll really need to try it for yourself. Nobody can tell you what your subjective experience will be. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Keep in mind that everyone here is an audiophile. We all have external DACs and love them. Our significant others often wouldn’t notice the difference between onboard audio and an external DAC. It’s all personal. 

[ecwl]

I realized @Gamboge might think the question is simple but it’s actually quite complicated.

 

First, Magni+ is not an external DAC. It is a headphone preamp/amp.

I’m not familiar with the Schiit line of products. But I think you can buy the regular Magni and then add an internal DAC but that is over double the price of the Magni+

 

If you’re using the motherboard ALC4080 to drive your Aria IEMs, when you connect the Magni+ to the ALC4080, you will get more power to your IEM. The issues though can be that there is too much power and you might get noise to the IEM through the amp or that the impedance matching of the IEM is better with ALC4080 instead of with the Magni+. Or even if the impedance matching is better with Magni+ than ALC4080, you might simply prefer the frequency response of the ALC4080 with Aria IEMs. This is why @The Computer Audiophile says that you need to try the product to know whether your Aria IEMs sound better with the product. There is science behind audio but you can’t guess based on the science whether you’re going to like the product.

 

Similarly, in theory, if you’re spending money on a well-built DAC+amp product from Schiit that costs significantly more than ALC4080 (which is probably a <$10 part and possibly a <$1 part), you would expect the spec and power output to be better with the Schiit than the ALC4080. But once again, whether you like the sound when paired with the Aria IEMs is less predictable. 

[Gamboge]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

the ALC4080 on its own doesn’t mean much. The motherboard designer could make it pretty good or terrible. 

I have an aorus b650i. Can't find much discussion on its audio quality.

15 minutes ago, ecwl said:

First, Magni+ is not an external DAC. It is a headphone preamp/amp.

Don't know how I missed that. Guess the Schiit Modi 3E is what I meant. Not sure how that would affect the "impedance matching" though with the built-in amp. What I'm getting from this is the only way to know is to actually try it?

[The Computer Audiophile]

53 minutes ago, Gamboge said:

I have an aorus b650i. Can't find much discussion on its audio quality.

Don't know how I missed that. Guess the Schiit Modi 3E is what I meant. Not sure how that would affect the "impedance matching" though with the built-in amp. What I'm getting from this is the only way to know is to actually try it?

Here’s an example of a motherboard with good audio design. 
 

[chrisc]

In my experience, outboard DACs always sound better than the signal provided by a computer, no matter how fancy the audio chip and circuit

 

And further than that, if you can avoid a computer altogether, it will be even more rewarding

 

For my desktop system, I'm using a FiiO K5 as a DAC and comparing the output from a Realtek audio stage, its chalk and cheese

[ecwl]

6 hours ago, Gamboge said:

I have an aorus b650i. Can't find much discussion on its audio quality.

Don't know how I missed that. Guess the Schiit Modi 3E is what I meant. Not sure how that would affect the "impedance matching" though with the built-in amp. What I'm getting from this is the only way to know is to actually try it?

Schiit Modi has no amp or volume control so you won’t be able to connect your IEM to it.

 

To replace ALC4080, you need a DAC and an amp. ALC4080 is actually DAC+amp.

I think @bogi has some great suggestions of products in your price range.

 

And yes, I think you’re hearing from all of us that the only way is to try a DAC+amp product and see if it sounds better to you compared to the ALC4080. It probably will. Personally, I suspect I have 70-80% confidence that an external DAC+amp would sound better to you with your Aria IEMs.

 

[DuckToller]

2 hours ago, bogi said:

@Gamboge The best thing you can do is just to try something with possibility to return it. As Chris mentioned, personal experience is the basis.

 

My tips to try in your price range:

SMSL M300 SE

iBasso DC04Pro

FiiO K3

 

It is good idea to read Amazon reviews from real customers, but you still cannot take others opinion like 100% relevant for you and your IEMs. Try to find some common points which appear in more reviews.

+1

 

I like to add, that I use the FIIO K7 (w/o BT) as a go-to on my desktop, which works excitingly well especially with highly sensitive iems.
 

[davide256]

9 hours ago, Gamboge said:

I have a motherboard with ALC4080 HD Audio and use Aria iems. My budget is under $150. If I buy something like the Schitt Magni+, will music sound better? I sometimes play games, but not that often, so it's not as much of a priority.

a decent portable headphone amp runs under $150 and includes DAC, is meant to drive IEM's. That's the route to go. Most now use USB C

with a USB 2/3 adaptor. It will make a difference

[PeterG]

I hate to disagree with our fearless leader, but it is an absolute no-brainer to buy an external DAC.  You, your wife, and even your philistine friends will all notice a difference.  The Schiit you mention is a great choice, and you can return it for a small restocking fee if I'm wrong.  The Audioquest Dragonfly line is also worth a look for a minimalist approach.  Probably not as good as the Schiit, but probably returnable with zero risk from Best Buy or Amazon.

 

Also, I sense from your question that you're new at this.  You should make sure the files you are playing are at least CD quality.  You can Google this, maybe also search terms such as Redbook, 16/44, FLAC, AIFF...

[ecwl]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

I hate to disagree with our fearless leader, but it is an absolute no-brainer to buy an external DAC.  You, your wife, and even your philistine friends will all notice a difference.  The Schiit you mention is a great choice, and you can return it for a small restocking fee if I'm wrong.  The Audioquest Dragonfly line is also worth a look for a minimalist approach.  Probably not as good as the Schiit, but probably returnable with zero risk from Best Buy or Amazon.

So the reason I agree with @The Computer Audiophile’s reservations is that @Gamboge is using IEMs. I used to have more wired IEMs and I’ve driven them from my desktop or laptop or iPhone or iPad built in DACs and compared them to my Chord Mojo. Depending on the IEM and how easy or hard it is to drive, I have to admit, the amp portion of Chord isn’t really doing much so you’re essentially just hearing the DAC section and while I can hear an improvement, it is definitely not as dramatic an improvement I get from listening through full sized headphones which require more power to drive. So given the price range @Gamboge is thinking of, I would have some reservations to strongly recommend buying blind.  

[Gamboge]

4 hours ago, ecwl said:

Schiit Modi has no amp or volume control so you won’t be able to connect your IEM to it.

So no sound would come out if I don't also have an amp? Is that because I'm using iems, or because I'm using a desktop? Or will sound come out, but it'll be of low quality? I tried looking this up, but I've found conflicting info.

[ecwl]

4 minutes ago, Gamboge said:

So no sound would come out if I don't also have an amp? Is that because I'm using iems, or because I'm using a desktop? Or will sound come out, but it'll be of low quality? I tried looking this up, but I've found conflicting info.

I am not an expert on Schiit product line. When I look at the website, Modi has no headphone jack so it doesn’t have an amp. And I didn’t see an option to add a headphone jack/amp. 

 

Magni+ on the other hand is amp only with no options to add a DAC. Magni has the option to add a DAC.

 

ALC4080 is not just a DAC. It’s actually a DAC with a low powered amp to feed your headphones. So to replace the ALC4080 you need a DAC and amp.

 

@PeterG’s suggestion of the Audioquest Dragonfly is another good one because they’re DAC+amp. 
 

Getting into the weeds, some DACs have enough power that they can directly drive headphones as if they have an amp built inside. That’s probably where you’re getting conflicting info. But hey, if someone told you Schiit Modi can drive your Aria, go for it. If it works, let us know. If it doesn’t work, get your refund from the person who gave the advice. 

[yamamoto2002]

On 12/30/2023 at 1:40 PM, Gamboge said:

I have a motherboard with ALC4080 HD Audio

 

I searched about Realtek ALC4080 and found it is interesting:

• It is USB DAC! and not "HD Audio" of traditional meaning (HD Audio like a ALC1220 is PCI/PCIe audio codec that meets Intel High Definition Audio specification)
• Headphone amplifier is integrated, output impedance is 1Ω, max output power is approx.
  • 32Ω : 70 mW  (SNR 118 dB A)
    600Ω :  7 mW (SNR 120 dB A)
• Supports DSD 2.8MHz playback using DoP protocol, and DSD 5.6MHz playback somehow
• Supports 44.1kHz PCM playback!
• THD+N -85～-90 dB

Its drawback is output power, if you are diehard headbanger who loves planar magnetic headphones you may want louder sound with powerful outboard headphone amplifiers

[Gamboge]

Ended up getting the Fiio newk3. It sounds somewhat "clearer". The difference isn't astronomical, but it is noticeable to me, especially on piano and percussive instruments for whatever reason.