Are sub £100 USB DACs worth buying?

Goose · 17 Nov 2018 at 22:16

I have a set of DT 770 Pro 80ohm headphones that i use plugged in to my onboard sound card (motherboard is an Asus x99 A-II) that i use for gaming and music (rock, blues mostly). I've never considered myself to be an audiophile so always ignored DACs/AMPs etc. as i've always been too poor to buy them.

I'm wondering if things ranging from this thing at £20 to this thing at £60 are actually worth the money when compared against onboard sound cards?

Thanks

lucid · 18 Nov 2018 at 00:10

If you can't find the answer here, have a look at www.head-fi.org/ It's a forum site dedicated to headphone users, so you're far more likely to find users there with direct experience of swapping from a direct connection to an external DAC/headphone amp.

Poneros · 18 Nov 2018 at 01:32

Imo the bang for buck is https://schiit.eu.com/dacs/fulla-2

Is both amp & dac. And yes, it is worth it.

Psycho Sonny · 18 Nov 2018 at 08:24

I'd go with schiit or aune t1. Which is a tube dac with a solid state amp. You can buy cheap tubes for less than £15 for rolling that really make the dac shine.

Goose · 18 Nov 2018 at 09:38

Psycho Sonny said:
I'd go with schiit or aune t1. Which is a tube dac with a solid state amp. You can buy cheap tubes for less than £15 for rolling that really make the dac shine.

Both out of my price range unfortunately, cant really go above £50-60.

MrRockliffe · 18 Nov 2018 at 10:04

Buy a Fiio E10K from somewhere with good returns, try it, compare and see for yourself.

No good people telling you if it makes a difference - you've got to try it yourself

ricid · 18 Nov 2018 at 13:48

Basically all DAC chips are excellent these days, so if you're happy I wouldn't worry. You're unlikely to get anything better than you already have for £60, but if you're having specific problems (noise or interference) something like a hifimediy DAC connected optically (TOSlink) might help.

sHo0sH · 20 Nov 2018 at 21:38

Smsl M6 is a good headphone amp /DAC combo for the money. I think you might get one for about £60 used

Psycho Sonny · 21 Nov 2018 at 16:53

Goose said:
Both out of my price range unfortunately, cant really go above £50-60.

the biggest question comes down to how good the the motherboard then.

if it's a budget motherboard then any external option will be better.

if it's a premium motherboard with built in headphone amplifier then you will need to spend at least £100 on an external option.

you could always just buy a sound card. your budget is the right amount for a decent sound card.

Marsman · 21 Nov 2018 at 19:32

MrRockliffe said:
Buy a Fiio E10K from somewhere with good returns, try it, compare and see for yourself.

No good people telling you if it makes a difference - you've got to try it yourself

Best advice in my opinion.

I've seen a guy say he couldn't distinguish any difference between a Asus Xonar STX, Creative Titanium HD and the onboard audio he was using, and I've seen someone else say the Xonar STX II is a noticeable improvement over the Xonar STX.

The former should be more apparent, the latter, much less so; yet one person notices no difference where you would expect it, and the other notices a difference where it really should be imperceivable.

When it comes to audio, experiences can differ greatly and don't underestimate the power of placebo.