Has anyone actually noticed an improvement from USB sound cards?

[desura]

Just curious.

 

[reallyscrued]

I nominate this for most well thought out serious thread of AT Forums.

 

[nsafreak]

Wow, really?

 

[sdifox]

Just curious.

Too many variables. You need some baseline, as in ac97 vs what is on the usb sound card for example.

 

[biostud]

going from onboard to USB DAC = Huge improvement in music fidelity. For me at least.

 

[hans030390]

It depends on the device you're using (not all are good) and what audio equipment you're using with that. Using cheap speakers or headphones with a USB Dac/amp probably won't net you much improvement.

 

[SyndromeOCZ]

I've noticed huge improvement when your going from laptop on board sound devices to an external USB one. Though when it comes to high end sound I always reached for my firewire Echo AudioFire2. It was an epic stereo sound card.

 

[JeffMD]

Subject is irrelevant. Sound Quality is related to the chips and dac used, not its interface.

 

[Anubis]

Subject is irrelevant. Sound Quality is related to the chips and dac used, not its interface.

Yep this. there are some very nice external USB DACs out there, and the top end cards from creative and Asus have nice DACS

3rdly you can run HDMI out and into a receiver to do the D-A conversion as well

however you prob wont notice the difference on most cheap computer speakers or crappy mp3s

 

[vbuggy]

Yes

 

[Fallen Kell]

Subject is irrelevant. Sound Quality is related to the chips and dac used, not its interface.

Except that the the chips and dac are not the only parts of the good sound quality equation, which includes clean power filtering, EM shielding, noise filtration, and quality output interfaces. The simple act of moving the chips out of the computer case will greatly reduce the EM interference. Placing a couple nice capacitors on the USB input power line along with a decent 5V voltage regulator behind it will also do wonders for audio quality. But, a lot of times these things are skimped on because they add extra components and take up circuit board space, which increases cost.

So, as stated the subject is not irrelevant. There are high quality devices and low quality devices. And the difference between the high quality and low quality is not just the chip and dac used. Even motherboard makers understand this, which is why you see some having the audio chip and dac on a part of the PCB which is electrically isolated from the rest of the board (like Asus calls SupremeFX III).

 

[JeffMD]

The usb line is digital, sticking any more voltage, shielding, or capacitors will do nothing. It can be considered as one of many methods of bringing the analog sound closer to the speakers, but nothing more.