Quality Headphones and Realtek 892

[burninatortech4]

I just bought a pair of Audio Technica m40x's based on the excellent reviews I've read online and the fact that they're<$100. Will my Realtek 892 be able to drive these and/or will I see a performance improvement from an external sound card and/or DAC?

I know very little about PC sound peripherals but I'm an avid music listener. Spotify premium / podcasts ect. Any hardware I can add between the headphones and the 892 that can improve audio quality is something I'd like to look into.

Something like this?

 

[nsafreak]

The M40x's are pretty easy to drive headphones and do not need an amplifier to drive them. I'd plug them into your onboard sound and see if you're happy with the sound that they produce. You might get an improvement in sound from an external DAC but I'd try the onboard first.

 

[sandorski]

I'm not really sure. At home I power those same Headphones through my Klipsch Promedia volume control module, but when away from home directly out from my Onboard audio, which is some Realtek chip. I have never tried a side by side comparison though to know if there is a difference. I suspect there is. One advantage to having a DAC is going to be with adding extra volume, I suspect anyway, otherwise you are limited to software volume controls and when using the Onboard it seemed like it gave decent Volume, but not great Volume.

One way you might be able to test it could be to listen to your Onboard sound then listen to the same Audio Source through a decent Audio systems Headphone output, if you have one available. Try not to listen through an EQ'd source on the Audio System though, that would skew the results.

One thing to keep in mind is that it takes a week or so of regular use to break-in the Headphones, so use them for awhile before attempting a test.

Of the linked DAC I have no idea how good/bad it is, I suspect it would be fine, but don't know. The only concern I would have is that it is USB. There are some Games(Dead Island series specifically) and some Software(Cakewalk music editing for eg, this might not apply to a wired USB solution though) that are either buggy or don't work fully with USB sound solutions.