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My macbook sounds better then asus xonar dg...

EskLuxor

EskLuxor

Member
recently purchased a asus xonar dg for a new rig i put together. i was tried of on board audio in recent years and wanted to purchase a real sound card again, mind you the last sound i bought was a creative audigy platinum 1 w/ live drive circa 2000. it was about $200-250 range if i remember correctly. i have a set of logitech z 5300 speakers that i love and have been going strong for about 6 years. and a set of denon ah-d1001 cans. i have a MB404LL/A macbook. black c2d 2.4ghz 4gb 500gb. i use vlc for listening to music the built in eq seems to be much better then that of itunes. music sounds awesome on both speakers and cans. both mp3's of different bitrates 128-320kbs, and flac files. it sounds much better then the onboard audio on my new asrock extreme 4 gen 3, and a asus xonar dg, not by a whole lot on the asus but still surprising. i know for $30 i want expecting a top of the line sound card but reviews for it r good, and packs a lot of features such as a optical out and built in headphone amp. least of all i wasnt expecting the best audio quality out of a laptop.
 
Why don't you use punctuation? It would make this so much easier to read. As it is, it's just a block of undecipherable text.
 
I'm sceptical. Does the Macbook actually sound any different from the Xonar with matched levels in a blind test? One of them would have to be pretty terrible to produce sound so different that it can be heard on the Z5300s.
 
I still think the old "Soundstorm" from Nvidia was the best sounding PC Audio I've heard .... That was back in the Socket A Nforce days though ....
 
Many sound cards come with software that supposedly make the sound better by sending it through EQ and/or perhaps some filters. What are the odds that you have software punching up the audio?

Make sure you aren't applying any post-processing and keep the eq flat on both to get a more reasonable comparison.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the macbook actually did sound better. One thing Apple does right is standardized hardware, even if it is junky hardware (not that I believe it is) because it's standardized Apple can make certain improvements to optimize the hardware, things like adding grounds, shielding and routing wires can make a huge difference. When you buy a 3rd party sound card it's impossible for the manufacturer to anticipate all the applications of the hardware.
 
EskLuxor said:
z5300's rock. like i said its not huge but noticeable.
Click to expand...
Noticeable... with matched sound levels, in blind test?

Seriously, people thinking they hear a difference when there's none is what keeps the entire high end hifi industry afloat. I would not trust my own ears to casually compare two sound sources.

One interesting way to test this is to record the signal of both sound sources, subtract the recordings from one another and see if the resulting signal is distinguishable from a completely silent signal or not. If the difference is clearly in the inaudible range, you don't even need to listen.
 
Pia said:
Noticeable... with matched sound levels, in blind test?

Seriously, people thinking they hear a difference when there's none is what keeps the entire high end hifi industry afloat. I would not trust my own ears to casually compare two sound sources.

One interesting way to test this is to record the signal of both sound sources, subtract the recordings from one another and see if the resulting signal is distinguishable from a completely silent signal or not. If the difference is clearly in the inaudible range, you don't even need to listen.
Click to expand...

Uh, this assumes that the mic can record everything our ears can hear... not that I think it's that important, the difference between 99% and 100% isn't that big a deal to me, especially when that 1% cost as much as high end audio gear that is full of smoke and mirrors.
 
All you told us is that your $30 sound card sounds worst than your macbook, that you like your speakers and that you have a nice set of earphones.

All they told you was to double check that your comparing apples to apples.

All I can do is recommend that you check to make sure that your comparing them both dry. Flat EQ with no shaping (i.e. applications that modify the sound; they tend to come with the drivers). AFAIK you're Macbook might just have better default EQ settings. Good luck.
 
maybe try foobar2000?


dg should sound better than the mac.

try the wasapi component for foobar2000. Should provide bit perfect playback
 
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Nothing to be surprised about, Asus cards are decent against typical onboard audio like from Asrock or something, but not necessarily better than Macs which have one of the best consumer level onboard audio.

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/12/apple-macbook-air-5g.html

If your audio budget is just $30, don't bother upgrading macbook audio out, just put it into better headphones or speakers. Forget about Creative, they're a dying breed.
 
gevorg said:
Nothing to be surprised about, Asus cards are decent against typical onboard audio like from Asrock or something, but not necessarily better than Macs which have one of the best consumer level onboard audio.

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/12/apple-macbook-air-5g.html

If your audio budget is just $30, don't bother upgrading macbook audio out, just put it into better headphones or speakers. Forget about Creative, they're a dying breed.
Click to expand...

op has an older macbook...MB404LL/A. It would be interesting if you can find the actual chipset. I figure you are more versed in mac hardware than me.
 
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