ANYBODY using uDAC-2 with their M17X????

Hey guys,
I'm looking to buy this Nuforce product but wanted to see if anybody is actually using one. I have read many reviews and they seem to be excellent but I just wanted some feedback before I drop $130
I've heard our Alienware's have decent sound and wanted to make sure a USB soundcard was a step up???
I'm using it for mostly gaming and some music. I also use the ATH AD-700 headphones!

If anybody recommends another USB DAC please mention it
Thanks
Rob

*Update*
just got it today

 

Decent sound from headphone output? Uh-oh.

I used the uDac-2 before stepping up to the DacMagic. The uDac-2 is very nice sounding Dac and its built-in amplifier will come in handy if you purchase a harder to drive headphone in the future.

The biggest benefit of the uDac-2 (or any other good sounding DAC) over the Alienware headphone out (or that of most of laptops out there) is clarity. You will be amazed how dull, muddy and distorted your M17x headphone out sounds. It just likes, say, you wipe off a steamy window in your bathroom and realize how clear it is after doing so.

The only good sounding headphone out I heard so far is that of Macbook Pro. Kudos for that and kudos for their hybrid analog - optical. I wish M17x had that feature

There are some other choices but I suggest uDac-2 would be good since NuForce is great company (they are much nicer than a lot of big boys), their products are coverred by 30 days return policy (but I doubt you will want to keep your windows steamy ), uDac-2 is lightweight and usb-power so it's LAN party and Sunday Starbucks friendly (your AD700 is not tho )

 

Thanks for the reply!
Great analogy with the steam lol
Will a DAC make Bad Company 2 sound better too? I would think so.
I originally had my eye on the Audinst MX1 but the reviews on the uDAC-2 are kind of swaying me in that direction.
I just want to make the right purchase the first time and not have to sell it later on for something else.

 

Have you tried going into sound opitions and turning off "Disable all enchancements?"
I was using an Audigy 2 zs on my last notebook and thought I was gonig to have to buy another for my Alienware after switching, but after turning that all it seems like the all the mud has gone away. it was a night and day differnce.

I';m using Shure SRH 440

 

@ rippeer: I always disable that yeah. But dedicated DAC brings massive difference. It's as noticable as SSD vs HDD

And SRH440 was my first audiophile headphone. I was spoiled because of it

@ Rob: MX1 is praised by many people too. I just prefer NuForce because the fact is you are dealing with US company. The uDac-2 itself coms with nice aluminum chassis in Space Black and Lunar Silver The uDac-1 is in Rebula Red You, Alienware user, can't ask for more

 

I too disabled all enhancements.
Sounds good but I want the best possible audio!
I like the red uDAC-2 I think it matches my system theme.
I'm going to order today from Amazon.

 

I just ordered the Red uDAC-2.
Black is to plain. Everything I have is black. The Red will go nice!

 

wow SSD/HDD I'm interested.... outside of music how is it for gaming, say GTA IV?

 

Strange, I had the exact opposite experience.

Either way, no laptop sound card will ever sound good enough for real use due to all of the interference, power and size restraints so I'd rather they don't even try.

As for the BFBC2 comment, if you want to get the most out of the sound don't forget to set it to War Tapes instead of the default.

 

What exactly do you mean by saying "opposite"?

MacBook experience or dedicated DAC experience?

I guess my English is bad lol.

Edit: Oh and rippeer, I did not say SSD vs. HDD sound quality wise. I meant the difference is very noticable just like the difference in speed between those hard disks.

And talking about gaming performance, SSD massively increase loading time in gaming. That's very useful when you keep dying in games lol.

 

With something like ATH AD-700, which is not hard to drive, I don't think you're going to hear much of a difference.

I am interested on how this will turn out for OP though.

 

I think the difference here is from the source, garbage in -> garbage out regardless of what headphone you are using. It's the windows is steamy or not, not your eyes are great or not

The difference is so obvious, to me, even with the crap iBud.

 

What headphones do you have?

edit: oh gawd.. ibud
Well, I can't say I think that I would be able to tell the difference with those.

 

Nope. I've been thru quite a lot of headphones. Quote of my sig at Head-Fi:

 

If I don't notice a difference I'll just sell it. But I'm crossing my fingers! Hopefully I'll like it. Every review I've read especially on Amazon have been great!

 

You can just return it lol

But I'm sure as hell you will see the difference.

The step-up difference will not be so impressive. But give it a week listening thru the DAC extensively then come back to the headphone out on M17x. Now it will be very impressive.

I just cannot live without a DAC, anymore. Regardless of what headphone, amp, any combination etc... DAC is always a must.

 

Same. I wont use headphones on my laptop anymore without a DAC.

I have the A700's and AD700's they are low impedance so there is no need for an amplifier to power them, but a good clean source is just as important.

On the A700 since they are sealed I heard a big big difference onboard is too bassy and muddy. The AD700 I have not gotten any real time to listen but since they are not too bassy the difference is not as large, but still much more true to the source of the music.

@Rob Speaking of a good clean source, the chain does not start at your output but from the music itself, and even your output render (ASIO, WASAPI, ETC) now that your entering the higher quality of stuff Rob you will be able to hear flaws and differences between say the run of the mill MP3 and something like a FLAC rip.

MP3 is really not on the menu anymore (in the 3xx+ kb/s range is ok if thats all you have)

For my most important music I use FLAC but for everything else I am totally ok with AAC with 192+kb/s and a variable bitrate. Thats higher quality than the 300-400kb/s MP3's and sounds virtually the same to me as FLAC but with less than half the space on my drive taken up (and compatible with my portable players)

 

Yeah! Recordings come first then DAC then amplifier (terms and conditions applied ) then Headphone.

For my most favourite music (aka Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, classic female pop etc...) and favourite bands I use FLAC and .wav. For Hip-Hop and other stuff I use 320kbps.

I have just got some audiophile recordings by Stockfisch and TIM converted from SACD to .wav files and some XRCD2 and XRCD4 by JVC recordings also converted to .wav from a friend. Sound quality of those recordings are incredible. If you want some to test out your rig, Rob, or anyone, PM me

Today I bought a PowerBook 15" to connect to my DacMagic via S/PDIF optical for better sound quality compared to USB input. The PowerBook will be my dedicated source of sound and the Alienware will do the job it does best: dedicated source of gaming

 

@ViciousXUSMC; @SillyHoney

I know this is heavily unrelated, however, it a m11xr2 capable of driving an ATH-M50 (straight cord variant)? I know the audio daughterboard is a seperately removeable piece on the m11x.

Sorry for the out of place question, I hunted around HeadFi for answers, but I didn't find any resulting from the m50/laptop combo

These would also be the first pair of quality headphones I ever have, since I got tired of replacing $12 headsets every 6 months So should I just be happy with whatever my laptop can output, or will it sound the same as a cheap set of headphones, due to the outputs? Would getting a uDAC like HandsomeRob help me a lot, then?


Thank you
-Jeremy

 

If you have quality headphones you want a quality source to go with it.

No need to rush and buy everything at once. Use them for awhile from the laptop and break them in.

Then later get the DAC and stuff.

The M50 are supposed to be pretty similar in a lot of ways to my A700 but just a bit harder to drive and fit tigher and have a bit more bass. So an amp is more called for. You will have to see if your system can drive them to a volume you like. Considering the nature of them (closed, bassy) I think they will sound much much better with a proper amp as usually the bass is the most impacted with good amplification (bass takes the most power to drive)

Its like this in any "hobby" think of photography. You drop $1000 on a nice DSLR thinking you did something good only to realize now you need to buy about 2 or 3 lenses to use the camera that can easily cost more than the camera itself.

 

@ViciousXUSMC, now you are scaring me

Thank you for your help

 

Heh dont worry I am not one to toss out recommendations for the big dollar stuff like $5000.00 DAC's and $4000.00 Amps, and custom made cables.

I think once you get to a certain point there is a lot of diminishing returns in what you get for how much more you spend and a budget level DAC/AMP in that $150 range is pretty darn good for what you spend.

It will last you years, over the course of time it will had cost you very little. Thats why I like expensive electronics so much more than expensive food and things. They last so your investing in them and getting your moneys worth.

 

Thanks for all the great info. The only source I have for music is iTunes. I buy all my music on there. I more or less bought the DAC for gaming purposes. But is iTunes a good source for music. I don't understand all the flac mp3 talk

 

Yeah, this is more audiophile territory

Flac is a container for music like MP3s, but unlike MP3s they don’t lose any quality in the recording. So you hear EXACTLY what is on the CD, while with MP3s you get extra noise, lose instruments, etc.

Flac are large files, and are not supported by iTunes. Apple has their own lossless quality format, but I’ve never seen it on iTunes.

After reading this thread I also bought a uDAC-2 because I always hear white noise coming out of my mini RCA jack on my laptop. I’m sure if I did a clean install and got rid of all the extra sound warping programs, but I really want a clean sound signal, because my gaming, and my game music FLACs need the love!

 

Can't wait to "hear" your opinion on them

 

The source role in the uDac-2 is the most important thing when it comes to an M11x (low quality source) and M50 (relatively easy to drive) so you should care more on the validity of source rather than the capacity of of amp.

That being said, the amp role does help with cans like M50. You will very likely love it. I owned it before and while I have been moving pretty far from that point, I love it to the extend that I bought one for my girlfriend and one for my brother. Simply put, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED The M50 bass will kick your butt. It will render stuff like explosive sound very well.

Could not be better said

Yeah! Don't spend too much because diminishing of return is very steep with audio but don't hesitate to spend some money on audio because unlike computer stuff, audio resale value is very very high. For all the audio toys I've been swapping through in a year I listed above, I'm losing pretty little. I do the "buy then sell to replace" game and I would say the loss is $200-$300 max for the total amount added up to, I think, 3 times the cost of my Alienware.

iTunes application on Windows is pretty bad, well actually it's one of the worst media player I tried on Windows. Using it to buy music is ok but for better listening you should go for Winamp or Foobar. WMP is also better than iTunes. iTunes on Mac, however, is a very different story.

I don't know how much your love is for music but from time to time I heard people claim that they realized they are listening to music a lot more because of a good headphone

 

I'll will post pics and my impressions when I get the uDAC
I hope to get it tomorrow or Thursday

So is iTunes considered a good music source??

 

Does the uDAC-2 also pass through a mic signal? Or would one need a separate mic device that would be plugged in to the mic jack on the laptop itself?

I am interested in this topic because I have gone through several headsets and most sound pretty bad (I mostly use it for gaming). I particularly need to be sure that any configuration I use supports a good microphone though, since Ventrilo use is a requirement for me.

The pictures make it seem like the device itself is pretty small... does it travel well? The ideal for me would be small (along with earbud headset and viable mic), so I can take it with me when travelling for work. My current (huge) headset doesn't really travel well.

Sorry for the noob questions - this isn't something I have explored much.

 

Yes it travels well! It's tiny! And no it doesn't pass a mic signal.
I plan on buying a Zalman Clip on mic and just plugging it in to my laptop

 

For people who are having problem with gaming headphones should read this thread. Virtual surround sound gaming headsets are marketing bull and your ears need to be treated better sound than what those crappy headsets are capable of.

Quest for Holy Grail of gaming sound! - Head-Fi.org Community

I'm pretty sure that an uDac will pass thru mic signal from headsets just fine. Tons of people are using dedicated DAC as a middle man between their headset and laptop (since Rob says no, I would say I don't know then )

For a pair of quality headset you may wanna take a look at Beyerdynamic or Sennheiser headsets. Or you can try the Fragtality's boom mic mod on AD700. The headphone is praised by many audiophiles that also are gamers because of high standard sound quality coupled with massive soundstage for better accuracy in pinpointing positions.

Audio-Technica AD700 Rewire/Mic Mod - COMPLETE! - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

Reagarding portability, AD700 is pretty huge. Well, it's huge. Ok then, it's very huge so it's not ideal for you when you are round and about. You may take a look at DJ headphones like Shure SRH series or Audio Technica M50 as they can be folded up seriously good. There are some mods are done on the SRH840. I don't know if there is a mod on mic, tho.

Still regarding portability, uDac is a little cuttie. It's about 2/3 of my Razer Orochi size wise and it is USB powered so it's very convenient on the go.

 

@ Rob: Are you sure the uDac will not pass thru mic signal?

And IIRC, iTunes music is 128kbps. Not an ideal source for great sound

And since you can only play their music in iTunes app, the result will be pretty bad because iTunes in Windows sucks! I'm using iPhone, I love iTunes GUI and I had some music buying from iTunes too so I really wanted to use iTunes for the sake of simplicity. But I can't stand its sound.

 

I think you can buy high quality music off itunes and it will come in apples AAC format, but you cant stream/rent it in that format it has to be purchases on a per song basis.

I dont mess with any of those music services I want to own my music and not have any kind of DRM attached.

 

Actually I'm not 100% about the mic passing thru. I take back my statement I made a few posts back. I just wouldn't think a mic would work. My uDAC shipped today USPS from California to California so I'm hoping to get it tomorrow or Thursday. I don't use my mic enough to mod my AD700's.
If I ever do mod them I plan on doing this:
Audio-Technica AD700 Rewire/Mic Mod - COMPLETE! - Page 5 - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net
I definitely want to at least reside them. The 10' cable is way to long that cones stock

 

Wow this mod for the AD700 looks nice
Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 : fit and comfort mod! - Head-Fi.org Community

 

@Handsomerob hopefully the uDac-2 gives you the difference you want! It's interesting reading and made me think about actually caring about laptop output again... I only really output music from my laptop when doing housework/cooking but since buying a surge protector the output is noisy from the laptop, I suspect the same will happen with the m17x I buy once I decide if I can afford xfire . My question to all is would a dac remove that noise issue I get when plugged into the surge protector? Or do I need to provide more information? My output is over a normal belkin aux cable to a urei 1601e, I know the aux cable is fine etc so it's completely the surge protector as without it, no noise and with all my surge protectors I get noise this is on an Alienware m9700a.

Btw dont mean to hijack the thread, just thought may as well get a question answered after interesting reading. Need to replace my AKG headphones sometime too anyway .

 

Hey does anybody here know how to mod headphones??
I want to do a detachable cable mod and paint the grills black on my AD700's?? I don't want a mic!! Just new shorter cable. All I need is like 3 feet?

 

"Dark Knight" AD700 Gaming Mod (Lots of Pics!) - Head-Fi.org Community

And back to the mic signal pass thru. My activities at Head-Fi just as much as my activities here at peak time and I have never ever seen any concern on that regard. People there do use headsets and most of them using dedicated DAC so if it's a problem, I would prolly see one.

@ DeWinte: I believe as long as your surge protector does not mess up the USB input, you will have no problem with using a DAC.

 

hmmmm... I just tested my ATH-M50s directly from my laptop vs laptop-->Yamaha Amp/Reciever -->ATH-M50s and there is a difference in the audio.... I'd like to say it has a rolling sound, but that's probably a horrible way of putting it (specifically on the drums, like there is another drum I couldn't hear as well..).


So would this be around the same level as a big reciever? Or is this an entirely different product alltogether? [I see an USB port on it?]

Basically, would it be this:

but smaller?

 

Roll-off on both high end and low end of the whole spectrum is typical issue of cheapo built-in DAC. Your receiver has DAC/amp built-in just like a dedicated DAC/amp combo i.e. the uDac and supposedly both are better than those on M17x soundcard.

The easiest way to tell the difference is to focus on the bass. The bass of your headphone will kinda having thudding sound (sound like you slap on a pillow ) and one note (all bass note regardless low or high sound pretty similar). It will be more bassy in mid-bass while roll-off in sub-bass which give you a headache after long listening session. The whole respresentation is kinda dull and muddy, more like you listen to music while your ears is coverred with shower cap.

A DAC/amp combo will act just like your receiver. How better or worse depends on each product. A DAC alone will need a separated amplifier to deliver sound. The USB port acts just like any other digital audio ouput like S/PDIF optical and coaxial or HDMI where the sound (in digital form) from your digital media is directly passed thru to reach the DAC where it's converted from digital to analog (thus the name DAC) without being touched by built-in crappy DAC/amp inside the M17x.

 

Thank you for the insight, SillyHoney
I just read through ViciousXUSMC's review of the uDAC, is it supposed to be like an USB soundcard? Or is it different than one I can get with a pair of headphones? [specifically a Sony headset]?
EDIT: oh, I didn't see your edit. Thank you very, very much!

I'm sorry for asking so many questions!
-Jeremy

 

That noise is ground fault, the uDAC-2 may fix it, not sure but you can spend like $6 on a ground loop isolator.

PAC SNI-1/3.5 (sni135) - Noise Filters - Sonic Electronix

More power from the receiver but you were still using the not so great onboard audio processor of your laptop as the source. It will be even better with a DAC.

Yeah its a USB Soundcard & Headphone amp in laymens terms

 

Oh you directly connect the headphone out to 1/4" input on your receiver? That means the digital signal had been converted to analog using on-board DAC BEFORE reaching your receiver so your source is STILL the laptop

Digital signal must be keeping untouched (as is from the media materials) from the on-board DAC before being more properly converted to analog by a dedicated (supposedly better) DAC.

And we are here to ask so don't mind asking questions

 

Thanks for the advice I'm thinking the same, and it shouldn't affect the way the USB port transmits data.

Thanks but I think it's something to do with the way the surge protectors work, the ones I have are made by Belkin and they all cause the effect. Normal extension leads don't and the same sockets etc. I suspect it may be to do with the way the surge protector delivers the power which is slightly odd as they are for high end home theatres and pcs. I doubt I have 3 faulty surge protectors so must just be how they are.

Anyway I'll try out a Dac see how that goes and if not then I'll still use the Dac but use the m9700a without the surge protection as it's old anyway lol.
Thanks both for your time and Sillyhoney for the knowledge and time in the thread also the other forum mentioned is very interesting reading.

 

@ViciousXUSMC, @SillyHoney

Ah thank you
Reading ViciousXUSMC's guide, I disabled a lot of the "enchancements" the Realtek driver put onto the outputs ("SRS Bass Boost," etc)

...is this the right thing to do? I read Studio Monitors were "unenhanced" for any purpose, and were designed to get audio sounding exactly as it comes in? So should I enable those functions, or disable them? I like it better without, though is it the right thing to do (in terms of audio quality?)?

I'm still sorry for all these questions (sounds silly, but I don't find a lot about laptops with headphones? Is it just less common?)

 

If you like the sound of enhancements use them.

It may not be as "pure" but if it sounds good to your ears that is all that matters.

A lot of people feel that when they have really nice stuff they should not alter the source since they can accurately hear the "real" music, but there is no need to be that way if you dont want to be.

 

I noticed on the m17x if you tick the "disable all enhancements" button it doesn't sound as good as if you just leave all the enhancements Un-ticked.
That make sense?

 

I don't know. I'm using DAC all the time so I'm not sure if it affects the sound via USB output but as far as I can tell people recommend disable them for better stability in some cases.

 

Here it is!
Just got it today! I havnt had a chance to try it yet though. The Red looks dope!

 

That *does* look nice...

 

-Update-
I've been using the DAC in BC2 for 30 minutes and it sounds great so far.
I keep switching back and forth from laptop headphone out to uDAC-2 headphone out. Im no audiophile so dont laugh at my choice of words. Lol When firing guns there is alot more bass and mids than before. It really makes the guns come alive!!
A good analogy would be listening to music with a shower cap on vs no shower cap. It's not muddy and not muffled.