Would I benefit from a DAC or sound card over my motherboards sound?

InfamousGeezer,

Integrated sound seemed reasonably good on the first several systems I used, but when I started hard drive recording in the '90's, I found the Audiowerk2 PCI soundcard a revelation and still use the M-Audio 192 "Audiophile" -a 2003 design- with MIDI support for recording and playback. It's 24/192 and uses 1/4" instrument jacks too which I prefer to RCA and I detest those 3.5mm mini jacks. That card has a Signal-to-Noise Ratio of 113dB as compared to the ASUS DS at 107. T

These days. the four systems used the most all have M-Audio 192's, including the 2007 Dell Dimension E520 that runs the television machine- for the last 15 years completely internet based.

Much depends on the quality of the amplification and speakers and of course how important sound quality is. In one office I used a Dell Precision T5400 with an M-Audio 2496 PCI "Audiophile" to an Audio Research LS3 preamp / Audio Research D130 amplifier that ran to Infinity 360 speakers- and that was truly impressive for computer sound, except the speaker placement - those are floor-standing- was not ideal and I decide I needed to have satellite or bookshelf speakers next to teh main monitor.

Today the M-Audio 192 ( in HP z420) goes to a Logitech Z2300 2.1 145W system- and which has a wired remote with a jack for my Sennheiser HD600 headphones. The Z2300 remains the best computer sound system I've heard. On the rendering system (HP z620) I couldn't use the M-Audio as the double-height Tesla M2090 GPU covers the PCI slot, so I bought a used Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe and the sound is OK.

The thing is is the speaker setup is 2 channel or 2.1 or using headphones, it seems a waste to have a 7.1 decoder- more gum in the gears- more processing path- in my opinion.

So, yes, I'm a strong advocate of dedicated soundcards if the speakers or headphones are good quality as well- which I think the Sennheiser 363D to be.

Still, if there surround speakers will not be, used it seems a waste to have a surround soundcard. If you have a digital audio out on your system, then the Syba headphone DAC- which appears to be 2-channel- looks to be an especially good idea, as the digital connections means the probably higher quality DAC in the Syba is doing the processing.

If the output is to headphones only, I'd suggest running direct digital output- the ASUS Z97-A has optical S/PDIF out port(s) on the back panel- to the Syba DAC /headphone amp. Anyway, the Syba has 2-channel RCA output jacks so if you add speakers with an integrated amplifier, or you could run USB to an A/V amplifier that intperopolates fro a subwoofer, it will also drive a 2.1 system. For the cost, I recommend the Logitech 2.1 z-series with the wired remote as the satellite speakers can be placed properly either side of the monitors and the subwoofer under the desk /table. Those are unfortunately connected with a 3.3mm stereo jack, whereas the Z2300 uses RCA.

I'm always curious as to how people organize the placement of surround speakers- I've never been anywhere where it seemed plausible.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card + Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers + Sennheiser HD600 headphones > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card + Logitech z313 2.1 speakers/ 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16
[ Cinebench R15: OpenGL= 119.23 fps / CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16