Sounds Cards Comparo (or The search for Aural Pleasure)

i use the nad d3020 in the lounge room, but i suspect it's overkill for your needs, and the integrated headphone amp is a feature rather than the main reason, although it is rated to drive up to 600ohm phones

the tone 1 plus that amp are really nice, but it's a 2+1 wharfedale system (10.1's + 10.gx) for room listening

schitt is popular, but overpriced for what you get imho; 2nd hand higher end units are probably a good buy

i have an alo pan am tube amp (plus dac) that i got from the forums - sounds beautiful, but the noise floor is buzzy in my office due to the wiring and numerous items sharing the same power point(s)
once the music starts it's glorious, but the "silence" between tracks is not agreeably silent

your question might get better info over at head-fi forum

i also use a tiny dac/amp from stoner acoustics, the ud130 - https://stoneracoustics.com/ud130/
unlike the khadas, it uses an akm chip, and sounds great for the akg's - a little too analytical maybe for the focal elears though, but maybe i am just too used to what the akg's sound like using it

 

Tone 1 arrived. Holy crap - you are so right! Damn, there's just more goodness. Thanks @scuffy1

 

yep, it's like OMG WTF ! where were all those sounds all these years ?

you have now crossed into another realm and lesser quality reproduction will forever sound noticeably inferior to what you want to be able to hear


next step is better headphones or speakers, and you are damned

the secret thereafter is to not listen to anything better than what you are now used to

with the khadas though, the cost of going to the next level is magnitudes of $ more - it is simply fantastic for such a small price

 

cheers for posting that info scruffy you definitely piqued my interest with that unit. Picked one up to check out Will post feedback end of sept once it arrives and i've had a tinker.

 

FiiO BTR3K or the S1220A onboard? Just wondering if onboard has gotten any better

 

Guys have a pair of senny HD518 on the way from a member here and also have the Lucidsound LS50x headset. Want to be able to drive these both well. The Lucidsound headset also has a 3.5mm port as well as bluetooth and a 2.4ghz dongle. Main thing I want use though is my LG SN8YG sound bar which I have bought the rear speaker kit. This LG sound bar has dolby atmos so want to drive a true dolby atmos signal through to this LG sound bar from my pc. My pc has a asus strix b550 gaming wifi mobo which I belive has a very good on board dac but really the specs of the audio stuff mean nothing to me as I dont know about all that stuff yet.

So my question is someout out there is there a sound card that does dolby atmos yet? Will I need a dac to drive these senny hd518 headphones and well as my lucidsound headset if I want to use them as well? At the moment the only way to get true dolby atmos out of my pc is to connect to my LG c9 OLED from my stirx rtxs hdmi port then it passes the audio through the earc channel down to my LG soundbar. This is quite a hassle as I have to turn on the tv then switch it to the right input then goto the audio settings in control panel of my pc and enable that hdmi port for audio. Then my tv is on even if I dont clone my desktop to it or use it as an extended desktop. Most of the time Im able to shut down the screen in the tvs settings so that It goes black and still sends through the audio. Have also tried directly connecting the hdmi port on my rtx 3070 straight to the soundbar but doesnt work. Windows wont pick it up.

So im stuck I dont know what else I can do. Any help would be much appreciate thanks guys

 

you can send sound via the hdmi but i believe you will need a soundcard that can do passthrough , and it's been many years since i bothered with a sound card as they are a poor substitute for a dedicated external dac (+/- amp, if you have passive speakers rather than powered ones)

i have 2 of these here doing nothing useful for me :
https://silentpcreview.com/xonar-hdav1-3-deluxe-asus-htpc-sound-card-does-everything/

they do dolby (and hdmi passthrough to push the sound signal via hdmi with the video feed), but i don't know about atmos - that was probably after their time

for stereo, atmos would seem like a pointless thing from my brief google - it processes multichannel feeds, so without a 7.1 system, i can't quite grok what you are trying to achieve

oh, i see they do multichannel on the soundbar... you might like the asus hdav then, but i think it uses win 7 drivers (which should still do fine using the 64bit driver)

failing that i have an asus xonar d1 and a d2 (the superior option) that will handle 5 or 7 channelsrespectively; again, they don't have a dedicated win10 driver, but the 64 bit win 7 driver works (that's a certainty in my actual use of them)


if you want to try any of them, i will sell it cheap; you can roll opamps in the hdav, and it does make a difference in sound quality, but in all honesty, buy a khadas tone 1 and learn to live with truly amazing stereo than the somewhat gimmicky multi-channel

 

pm me what your are chasing for the Xonar HDAV1.3 and what it comes with please. thanks. Then ill consider it possibly. Thanks for the help and the reply

 

pm sent... let me know what ya reckon