Why use an external soundcard or D/A converter instead of the internal soundcard for external listening?

Hi,

The quality of sound depends on the D/A converter. I live currently in the UK and have a large cd collection which is partly in my home country and partly in England. Since it is not physically possible to transport a lot of my cds, I have been converting my cd collection to flac. But the problem was to feed the signal to my amplifier. If I took it from my headphone socket of my computer or from my Cowon player, the quality of sound wouldn't be acceptable. So I currently use the Marantz NA7004 network audio player as an external soundcard and D/A converter to my computer. The advantage is that I am now able to store more than 1000 cds on an external harddrive. Songbird has also solved the problem of organising the files in the proper order. I can tell as an audiophile that there is enormous difference betwen a cheap DAC converter and a more expensive one. I use the NA7004 as an external DAC for my Marantz cd6003 and Cambridge Audio 650BD. The sound is much improved. However, the cables play a major role. I use Van den Hul digicoupler for the connection between my transport and DAC and a Wireworld ultraviolet to Type A to Type USB cable. 

regards Anand

As Andrew said, unless you have an epensive high spec computer, your soundcard is not likely to be great, and, furthermore, there's a lot going on in your computer, which is picked up as noise. In simple terms, an external DAC connected by USB picks up the digital signal direct from the pc's media player, and by-passes the pc's soundcard, so avoiding all the noise factors. The external DAC is also more likely to be of a much higher grade than your PC's soundcard, and will give better sound quality. As Anandi said, there's a difference in quality between cheap and expensive DACs, but in my experience, with recent improvements in the cheaper ones, the difference is not that great. I can highly recommend the relatively cheap Fiio E7. This was introduced to me by a friend, and the first time I tried it, it was so quiet that I thought it wasn't working until the music came on, and what a revelation the sound quality was. The advantage of this DAC is that it is small and highly portable, and therefore ideal with a laptop.

When I first tried computer music I plugged the PC headphone output into a CD + amp system which happened to be in the same room and thought the results pretty poor. I thought I'd try a budget external DAC and bought the little wireless DAC illustrated at the top of Andrew's article for £40 or £50 at Maplin and found it a drastic improvement.

I purchase only uncompressed downloads so if you use low bit rate compressed downloads the difference may not be so noticeable. The gadget works at CD rate ie 16 bit 44.1 kHz so is no use for high resolution downloads but I'm not yet into those and thought the device a bargain at the price and currently see no need to upgrade it.

This is a topic that seems to present new information all of the time. I new before I invested in an audiophile system that I wanted a DAC. What I didn't understand and still don't, but now to a lesser degree, is how to achieve the best results via the various connection options between the computer and the DAC.

Many people believe that the USB connection between the computer and the DAC is the way to go, that is if the DAC can effectively support it. My Ayre QB9 DAC only offers a USB type of cable connection but Ayre has had enormous success with this DAC and I have no regrets about purchasing it. It may turn out however that with other high end DAC's, that connections other than the USB connection will obtain the better result.

Depending on which DAC and which connection, it may be advantageous to change out the internal computer sound card and/or purchase an audio supportive software. The best internal sound card that I know of is made by Lynx Sound Technology and their sound cards can be installed in both Mac and PC.

As far as software is concerned, Amarra makes a downloadable software for Mac or PC and JPLAY makes a software for Windows only. Both of these programs to my knowledge will stabilize the signal so that it plays in real time (or close enough not to notice). Amarra offers a free trial period of its software for 15 days.

The internal clock issue is very important and often slighted. The Ayre DAC that I have has its own internal clock which keeps me from having to purchase software. Personally, I have tried the Amarra to DAC combination but I like the sound of the DAC alone.

Personally I would recommend some kind of wireless solution for sheer convenience. I use Logitech Squeezeboxes but I wouldn't suggest these as an option for non-techie types. There are of course other similar solutions such as Sonos.

I also use an Apple TV which I works well for me with Spotify. The problem I have with iTunes is lack of support for Classical-specific tagging but I guess there might be (?) alternatives available.