Ask HN: Is onboard audio still good enough compared to dedicated Sound Cards?

66 points by monkburger 1 year ago | 74 comments

Recently, I upgraded my outdated PC to a Z890 motherboard, primarily because it was significantly discounted compared to AMD alternatives. After the upgrade, I noticed that the Realtek onboard audio doesn't sound as good as my previous configuration, which used a Recon3D sound card. Although I haven't conducted any scientific tests, the difference in sound quality is quite apparent to me.

I'm reaching out to understand the technical reasons behind this perception. Do dedicated sound cards offer tangible audio quality improvements over modern onboard solutions like Realtek? Specifically, I'm interested in aspects such as DAC quality, component shielding, and feature sets that might contribute to a superior listening experience.

Additionally, how much of this difference is rooted in theoretical hardware advantages versus user experience factors? Any insights or experiences from device engineers and audio enthusiasts would be greatly appreciated!

AngryData 1 year ago |

Theoretically your onboard sound could be just as good as anything you get off a card. In practice, it comes down to the physical implementation on your motherboard, like are the amplifying components well specced for their use, are they well separated spatially/electromagnetically from other potential sources of electrical noise on your motherboard, what are the power traces potentially shared with or near, is your power supply giving it clean power.

Now those aren't things you can casually observe all that useful information from, so it doesn't really help that much other than to try and buy quality components and hope for the best, often if you want good onboard sound you can find it if you are spending a reasonable amount on the board to start with though and not using and underspecced or dirt cheap PSU. A sound card could alleviate some potential issues though either because you bought a cheap board or just from being lied to by marketing that you were getting better onboard sound than they actually built. But it is still located on your motherboard and near a bunch of other things running at their own frequencies which may or may not be a problem depending on location and shielding and components.

And for all those reasons, a lot of people have skipped the sound card route and got a USB DAC, which gives a lot of physical space between all those other components and eliminates some restrictions in form factor for being inside a computer.

One thing to look at before you do anything else, look at where your analog speaker line is running. Is it now crossing near your PSU or power cords? Is it a different cheaper cord? The lowest hanging fruit for sound quality is the longest and final analog run and it is always good to try moving it around if you suspect a problem.

unification_fan 1 year ago | |

> A sound card could alleviate some potential issues though either because you bought a cheap board or just from being lied to by marketing that you were getting better onboard sound than they actually built. But it is still located on your motherboard and near a bunch of other things running at their own frequencies which may or may not be a problem depending on location and shielding and components.

Most sound cards these days are USB

chrisjj 1 year ago | | |

> Most sound cards these days are USB

Surely they are not /cards/.

ribadeo 1 year ago |

Balanced differential inputs and outputs reject common mode noise, which is why they are essential for long cable runs and microphone leads, among other things that benefit from such an interface.

The actual ADC and DAC chips, or codecs, are usually specced just fine in even consumer on-board audio devices.

Hifi audiophiles are notoriously superstitious, and as long as RCA coax is the connection standard, my eyes continue to roll about their DAC nonsense, but you should pay attention to professional audio as this is where you can hear audible differences. Preamplifier stages and voltage amplification in general have a lot of nuance and analog circuit know-how inside. Removing the codecs from the inside of an electrically noisy computer is the beginning of starting to care about audio signal quality. Power filtration is another major concern for noise. Latency is a factor of buffer size which is both necessarily low when overdubbing recording while monitoring, and yet paradoxically allows for smoother glitch free audio as the buffer size is increased, largely a function that is CPU bound. No one talks about DMA controllers or the data bus employed, often USB, another factor that can affect audio independent of which audio interface or soundcard is employed. Some play nicely, some don't.

My advice is to delve into the world of professional audio, as this is real. Hi-fi often entails gullibility and snake oil in the sales chain.

M95D 1 year ago |

Using headphones, I can tell the difference between Realtek MB audio, HDMI digital audio via TV's DAC (worse background noise, less bass) and a chinese USB DAC and preamp (less background noise, more bass). I hate the extra cables the USB DAC requires.

On my previous PC I used a Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96 with it's own heaphone preamp. It was better than onboard, but worse than USB DAC/preamp (more noise).

nothercastle 1 year ago |

The Apple USB c dac is fantastic and it’s like 10$ if you want something better you need to go to the 100$+ range

erdaniels 1 year ago |

I've noticed a sound card sounding better for higher impedance headphones and also having reduced interference from the onboard circuitry (from being further away?). That being said, I also had to calibrate my setting a whole lot more to get better audio which seems to be how it goes for hifi audio equipment. I've just stuck to onboard for a long time and it's usually pretty darn good sounding with my sennheisers.

locusofself 1 year ago |

Subjectively it seems like headphone jacks on laptops have gotten significantly better in the last 20 years. I don't have any qualms about listening to music on my macbook. Even budget audio interfaces like Focusrite are certainly going to have stronger headphone amplifiers and probably better frequency response and work well with higher impedance headphones though. Brands like MOTU and Audient are even better.

Kirby64 1 year ago | |

They have, especially if your standard is Apple devices. Pretty much all Apple devices that still have a headphone jack have extremely competent audio paths, capable of driving the most fiddley headphones. Much better than mediocre audio interfaces.

ABoredBirb 1 year ago |

I have an Asus Essence STX II sound card. Paired with decent enough headphones, it is night and day, compared to built in realteks or whatever. It is around 300eur, but this card won't become obsolete (unless it becomes incompatible with some other hw). A very worthwhile investment, if you value music, or even sound in games.

ABoredBirb 1 year ago | |

I have also tried cheaper dedicated sound cards, such as soundblaster z - these don't really differ much from onboard ones and are not worth it.

piltdownman 1 year ago | | |

If you can't hear digital switching noises off a standard headphone jack when using good quality headphones plugged in directly, I'm honestly not sure your hearing is up to par.

smackeyacky 1 year ago |

My rather simple minded approach is unless it buzzes or clips the major difference you hear in audio output is the volume.

An external DAC should be better in theory, but if you match the volume and haven’t got any interference you’ll struggle to tell the difference.

I may of course have damaged hearing so YMMV

ksec 1 year ago |

>I noticed that the Realtek onboard audio doesn't sound as good as my previous configuration, which used a Recon3D sound card.

I was thinking who is still making consumer dedicated sound card? Never heard of the name Recon3D. Turns out it is Creative Sound Blaster.

12_throw_away 1 year ago | |

Yeah, new consumer-grade PCI soundcards are not easy to find these days. The Recon3D is very old and very unsupported. But if you need a soundcard for whatever reason, Recon3Ds are plentiful and cheap on ebay, and there are drivers out there that still work in Windows 11 ...

kazinator 1 year ago |

Should this not be:

Ask HN: is on-board audio good enough yet to obviate dedicated add-on hardware?

When did on-board audio surpass custom hardware, so that we are on a reverse trend? I didn't get the memo. (Not that I'm subscribed to this issue in any way, mind you).

nitwit005 1 year ago |

If the prior machine still works, you might open up the settings software that came with the sound card. It's always possible you fiddled with things early on, forgot about it, and now new machine lacks that customization.

monkburger 1 year ago | |

Good idea. I checked it out and nothing stands out.

monkburger 1 year ago |

Just an update:

I switched out the 'TOSLINK' over to a standard coax and the sound is much better - not on par with the Recon 3D card, but it's an improvement. I am using some Logitech speakers and not headphones.

chaz6 1 year ago | |

That is surprising. If anything, I would expect the toslink signal to be superior as it is completely galvanically isolated. Is it possible that there is dirt affecting the signal, either in the sockets or on the plugs?

monkburger 1 year ago | | |

Possibly. Another thing that could be is that I damaged the cable (somehow) when disconnecting it. Or, the Realtek TOSLINK has some design/implementation flaws.

Another possibility? could be placebo

fazeirony 1 year ago |

i too have noticed this and as such, have switched to USB out to async USB input DAC that supports that. there are plenty of good quality, low cost DACs available from folks like schiit, smsl, topping, etc. (cheap enough that as someone that used to 'roll tubes' in my audio systems, i can now 'roll DACs' instead lolol).

i'm quite partial to the ESS sabre series of DACs at this point personally.

adzm 1 year ago |

Not one mention of resistance yet. If you have a high ohm set of headphones you'll certainly hear a difference with a good audio interface.

thefz 1 year ago |

I found that onboard is more susceptible to picking up a ground loop, therefore I use external USB cards.

krembo 1 year ago |

Just buy SoundBlaster. (just kidding)

(Connected to PC via USB) Schiit Modi DAC Schiit Vali 2 Headphone Amp (with a tube!) PreSonus E4.5 Powered Studio Monitors (Connected to phone via USB) Aune Yuki DAC Meze 99 Classics headphones.