REALTEK ALC1150 6 INSTEAD OF 5 UPGRADE

If PCI-E is a problem then there are PCI-E solutions available, some pretty cheap yet still sound very good. One could buy Asus Xonar DX with proper D/A IC more than decade ago and still use it to this day and for foreseeable future (probably more than decade into the future as PCI-E is pretty refined technology which won't need replacing anytime soon) and with that what is the point to listening on-board audio? No point at all. It also uses 1-bit chip but one build for actual quality in mind and is used on some high-end audio equipment. On my smartphone (Meizu MX4 Pro) I have far better sound than from my motherboard on-board audio chip. Realtek uses 1-bit ΔΣ modulation in all of its audio products and this tech have specific unmistakable sound signature, especially if filtering is not done correctly and switching frequency is not high enough.

It is just like much more refined version with noise pushed somewhat further into higher frequencies and better power output allowing headphones to not choke themselves, but all in all it sounds very similar as eg. My mobo have high end ALC chip also with some crazy SNR rating and it sounds exactly like all Realtek ALC implementations. Some external DACs can plug into a computer via USB basically making them an external soundcard (and bypassing any other sound device you already have).Ĭlick to expand.This is still Realtek ALC sound codec and Creative stuff is software-only. If you have a soundcard and you like it's features for example, you can use the DAC on the soundcard or you can use a different DAC instead by simply running a digital cable from your soundcard to an external DAC. This does not have to be directly related to which features you need.

REALTEK ALC1150 6 INSTEAD OF 5 UPGRADE

Anything that already outputs analog audio already has a DAC, but there are many possibilities where you can upgrade to a better DAC. The DAC is where the analog audio signal is actually created, so this has a huge impact on the sound. There are many examples, and plenty of people make use of those features, but they are all optional and you will never 'need' anything more than onboard. Stuff like Virtual surround sound that can either downmix 7.1 down to 2 for great headphone surround, or upmix stereo content into 7.1 for a multi-channel setup. There are two main things that you have to consider.įunctionality refers to any features on the card that you might make use of. This comes from a headphone enthusiast and hobby mastering engineer for newcomer producers (over 700 tracks mastered). Loudness wise the onboard soundcards when driven out of the amped output should be able to drive even 300 ohm headphones like Sennheiser HD650.Īs long as you're using 5.1 speaker setting, the virtual surround is pretty decent without any audio quality hits (more the opposite, improvement in soundstaging) and that tends to be my preferred config so far, SBX, dolby headphone, Razer etc virtual surround processings didn't convince me that the audio quality impact was worth it, I rather take 25% improvement to surround processing without any audio quality impacts/artificial side effects than 50% improvement but with 25% audio quality hits.

I pick ASRock also as my next board for the sound alone as I know their config works well. I've been very happy with Realtek ALC1150 and ALC1220 on Intel Z270 and Ryzen motherboards seems a further significant upgrade.ĭifferent manufacturers picks different onboard amps so the result can vary, I remember I wasn't that convinced with an ASUS ROG motherboard with ALC1150 (sounded a bit muffled, too warm with slightly smoothed out highs with an over emphasization of bass frequencies, even stronger bass than on a ZxR!) but my ASRock motherboard using Texas NI5532 sounded wonderfully to me, so much I ditched the SoundBlaster ZxR and ASUS Essence STX II or SoundBlaster G5 that still all measures technically better but subjectively I preferred the sound of the onboard.

Realtek alc1150 6 instead of 5