ENVY + DAC? Or is it fine without a DAC?

This one is for the audiophiles, but since the Envy is billed as being in a higher class for audio, would anyone recommend going with or without a DAC?

 

DAC. The sound card on the Envy is nothing even close to Hi-Fi. It's all marketing.
The Envy only has analog outs and no firewire, so you will need a USB DAC.

garbage in = garbage out.

 

as said... the "beats audio" is bullsh$t. my 4 year old lenovo had a much higher quality output on it. all they have done it taken a mediocre (at best) sound card and strapped on an equalizer that ramps up the bass.

 

all onboard sucks

get a DAC if your seeking quality out of your sound.

Something like a Fiio E7 or Nuforce uDAC-2 HP if you just want to run some headphones.

or a NuForce uDAC-2 if you want a line out (preamp) to hook it to larger systems and speakers.

 

While the onboard sound on the Envy does a noticeably better job than most other notebooks, a DAC will still make quite a marked difference.

I've personally been using a Nuforce uDAC-2 for a couple weeks now with both my Shure SE530's (travel) and Sennheiser 595s. It was well worth the $100 for the DAC.

 

Hmm...I knows nothing about DAC but if you want to boost your sound this little product right hurr is amazing. I got it for my 64Bit Server (which didn't come with any sound card built-in whatsoever) and it does wonders. Incredibly clean and crisp sound...and very loud. All for under $20. One of my best purchases ever!

 

I realize the beats thing is BS, that's just a bass boost or w/e, but was hoping DAC wasn't really needed.....it's always seemed silly to me to buy cheap chinese parts to somehow magically make sound better

 

so get a Nuforce uDAC-2?

I'm going to be running this into a headphone amp so just need something for DAC, nothing more

 

the uDAC-2 has pre-amp outputs so it can act as a DAC only, but it does also have a amp (quite a good one at that)

the only DAC only units I know of are very expensive as they are specialty items for those pro audiophile types and for desktop type use not for portable laptop use.

 

I'm using my ENVY as an audio player and connect it to a 7 year old Philips Hi-Fi (4 passive speakers + active subwoofer) - my main audio 'station'.

I connect with the headphone output 3.5mm jack to an AUX input in the Philips.
Quality is good, but I would want to improve it.

Would you guys recommend the NuForce uDAC-2 and would I see a noticeable difference in quality? (Not considering the speakers since they are fine)

 

i dont understand what a DAC does...how does it make the audio better? its crystal clean as-is....i dont get it!

 

I don't know if I'd call it mediocre at best. I'd just call it plainly mediocre. I am much more pleased now that I output to external speakers, though. HP really is ridiculous for the audio hype, though. It tried to present the Envy as a computer built around music.

 

You have to hear it to get it lol.

I can point you to 3 or 4 different people tha bought a uDAC-2 since I got one and did a review and all of them were quite impressed with the increased sound quality.

As I stated in my review I did not know what I was missing until I heard it for myself.

On board audio on all laptops no matter how nice they claim to be just sucks, both in regards to the amp & dac.


So what does a DAC do? Its just in laymens terms a soundcard, but a real DAC is much better quality than the one in your laptop.

 

Id say yes you will get a good boost in quality. Probably more noticeable on headphones though than speakers unless you have some very nice speakers.

One thing to note is your "double amping" when you go from the headphone jack to the line-in on your other amp, and that is usually considered a bad idea if you can avoid it.

The uDAC-2 has a proper line out on it via the RCA jacks.

 

@Lvivkse

The audio outputs on the Envy 17 are from the onboard audio chipset. Onboard audio suffers from interference from other motherboard components. Plus, onboard audio chipsets do not use high-end components. They use mediocre components at best. Thus, the chipset introduces distortion into the audio signal. If you use this signal and feed it into external sound equipment, that equipment is basically going to work with whatever you give it; crap out from the Envy into your audio equipment will give you amplified crap out.

To bypass the distortion caused by onboard audio, you use a DAC. A DAC will take the digital signal, which is pretty much a direct match to the data in whatever audio file you have, and convert that into an analog or optical signal that you can feed into your external audio equipment. Thus, this way your audio equipment gets a distortion free signal that it can then amplify and play through speakers. Of course, you need to have a good quality audio file to make use of this.

 

is this distortion/interference a little overblown?

i realize i "have to try it to understand" but its not like sound quality at the moment is bad by any means

will one of these chinese ones from ebay suffice? i ask because I'm going to Beijing in a couple weeks and could get one on the cheap in the markets

 

Well for most people the sound quality from the onboard chip is decent enough for regular use.

But then again, for most people a regular cheapo LCD screen is also good enough.

When people say it's "crap", it's because they've heard better. I didn't think iPod Touch LCDs were bad until I saw S-LCD and S-AMOLED screens on some smartphones I didn't think my computer speakers were that bad until I heard a full high end sound system.

At the end of the day it's a question with what you want and what you're willing to pay for.

Yes even the Chinese DACs and USB soundcards will provide a better sound than the regular onboard chip.

 

I'm not looking for portable use, but my laptop is my main PC and how I listen to music 90% of the time

 

It also depends what kind of output item(speakers/headphones/earbuds) you're using. A DAC is nice, but IMO the output device will have a greater impact before the DAC.

 

sennheiser hd 580, might buy some AKG k702s

 

A really noob question, but whats the difference in sound if I use a Creative X-fi sound card like this
Amazon.com: Creative Labs SB0950 ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook USB Audio System: Electronics
compared to a DAC or amp like the FiiO E7 withe the Envy 14 or ANY laptop for that matter?

 

Well the first difference is that the Creative has less inputs/outputs so it's less flexible than the uDAC2 or the E7.

The Creative doesn't have an integrated amp too IIRC so it might have more trouble driving some headphones.

The rest really comes down to the quality of the circuits and whatnot. For example, that Creative you showed only outputs 16-bit while the uDAC2 and E7 can output 24bit IIRC.