Dont forget that for PCs: the hardware is as good as its software (drivers).When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.With advancements in lossless compression, bit-perfect rippingstreaming, HD audio formats, multi-terabyte storage, and PC-friendly DACs, has the PC earned a place among high-end audio gear At what price point.
The company sells a variety of codecs with different feature sets. The Rampage III Formula motherboard Im using comes equipped with an ALC889, so thats the multi-channel codec Im testing alongside the discrete solutions. Except for the very similar ALC898 and technically better ALC1150, neither of which is listed in the table below, Realteks ALC889 is pretty much top-of-the-line. Beyond sporting the most advanced specifications, its also Realteks only codec with support for DSD (though we couldnt find a suitable ASIO driver to get it working with foobar2000). You can purchase the ALC889 in volume as an OEM for an indicative price of 2 per chip (or less, depending on the volume ordered), which means that the cost it adds to your motherboard is probably less than 10. Talk about an indicator of how commoditized the integrated audio market is. Before you lean on integrated audio, be sure to do a little research into the codec your motherboard includes. Specifically, higher-sounding part numbers arent always indicative of a better component. For example, the popular ALC892s specifications are inferior to the ALC889. According to its datasheet, the ALC889 sports headphone amplifiers integrated at six output ports. They drive the Sennheiser HD 800s at 93.6 dB(A), and as such have more than enough power for anything at or below 300. As youll see, the ALC889 appears to be the least hi-fi of the devices were testing, with a 1.4 dB(A) difference at 100 Hz. It is quite easily distinguishable in a pure-tone comparison at that frequency, although it is much harder to detect in regular music-listening scenarios (as at 1 kHz and 10 kHz the volume difference is much smaller). At 77 for the recommended implementation, it is by far the highest (almost by an order of magnitude over the second-highest) in our round-up. Even though as you mention, audio gear is not usually the fortemphasis of the reviews here, its refreshing to have someone at least try to cut through the (more often-than-not) overpriced arena of bullshit that is the field of high-end audio. Just wondering, why not test a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD or something like that alongside the ASUS Xonar It would be interesting to see some of the differences between different PCIe sound cards in this matchup. However I understand that what you were really going for was showing the difference between price point and form factor at the same time, so perhaps not testing two PCIe cards makes sense. Realtek Alc889 Full Range SpeakersThe biggest thing I have found for the PC is no matter how good your DAC is, if your speakers and AMP are crap, then it will never sound better.People spend big money on DACs and forget that you need a high Quality amp with very very low THD (total harmonic distortions) and a very good set of Full Range speakers with high sensitivity if you want good sound, instead of crappy (albeit expensive) computer speakers especially sets with a sub. Wonderful article I love listening to music and do so mostly at my PCs. Although we all love drooling over expensive equipment, many times it is not all that necessary for an amazing experience. Id love to see more Including smaller, studio speakers as I believe that speakersheadphones are the most important part of the equation.
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