I’ve been thinking about ditching my gaming headset in favor of nicer headphones and a proper sound card. Is getting a sound card worth it or would a USB DAC be better? What are some good options that work well under Linux?
50% of the appeal of a dedicated sound card is the supporting software suite from the vendor, which is nearly often Windows only. It’s basically money wasted to be honest if you are mainly on a Linux box.
Is your current gaming headset USB? How is your onboard sound? Invest in a good set of headphones first and work it out from there.
Similar to Melcar I would say invest in a good pair of headphones first. Most onboard sounds are perfectly fine these days unless you’re super audiophile. You can always get a DAC or something else later if you feel the onboard doesn’t satisfy your needs.
Just make sure you connect the headphones to the rear panel of the motherboard and not the front panel. The tiny wires from the motherboard to the front panels will pick up a ton of noise that might not be as noticeable with cheapo-gaming-headsets, but are definitely noticeable with a good pair of Hifi headphones.
2 Likes
Use onboard sound as a DAC, get an external Amp (Monolith Liquid Spark, for example).
1 Like
yeah, it’s USB…never actually used my on board sound, I have the Gigabyte Aorus AX370-K7 motherboard so I would think the on-board sound is decent as it’s not a low end MB.
Any headphone recommendations?
Headphones are fairly subjective so the definitive answer would be “you need to test yourself”.
That being said, I am very happy with my beyerdynamic DT 990 that I have had for roughly 2 years now. Just know these are open headphones (there are the DT 880 as semi-open and DT 770 Pro as closed headphones though), so they are not for everyone.
Depends on budget, use case, your surroundings, etc.
Rule of thumb: If it is made by a company that makes keyboards, avoid it.
3 Likes
In Linux I’d just use USB headphones if you want headphones. Some of them don’t work but I’ve had good luck with the Logitech and Razer ones I’ve tried so far.
For other audio I don’t see the point in a sound card. The audio in the motherboard or the HDMI output of the GPU has always worked well enough.
If you’re a real audiophile, well, one guy I worked with at my last job was an EE graduate working in software (go figure). He built his own power line isolater and preamp for his headphones and drove it with some Linux compatible USB DAC chip. He did all his own soldering.
If you’re really into audio workstations there’s several high end cards with excellent Linux drivers. These are not for sound effects like making your voice sound like a troll. They’re for real-time mixing 16 channels of 24 bit audio with JACK software. They also support Windows but only the real-time pro audio APIs. Or at least it was that way in Windows 7. They wouldn’t play game or desktop audio at all.
I have that board too. Using the onboard sound and it’s good enough for me (games and YouTube movies/music mostly). Use a Cloud Alpha as headset.
For the OS I’m using Kubuntu 20.10 and the onboard sound works without major issues, except that sometimes ALSA mutes the front channel from the back connectors after a reboot. I used to have problems with PulseAudio not picking up the front panel on Kubuntu 20.04 and earlier, but that got sorted out once I upgraded to Kubuntu 20.10.
One thing that I should mention. Before the Alpha headset I had a Revolver headset. The Revolver had noticeable noise and static when using the onboard sound. The Alphas don’t have this issue and are dead silent when I cut off all sound. All I can think of is that the Revolvers are a more sensitive headset (quoted impedance is 30ohm) compared to the Alphas (65ohm)
Hmm, ok. I build my own kernel from the latest stable sources so more than likely I shouldn’t have any ALSA issues if they’ve been fixed for you. Yeah all I do is game, YT, and anime, nothing super crazy. Just looking for an upgrade from my logitech G933 that’s a bit nicer than a gaming headset
I’ll go against the grain here and say you should prioritize moving your DAC away from the electronic noise of your computer by getting an external DAC. Most any combo DAC+Amp would probably be fine. Most USB audio interfaces have a good enough built-in amp for most headphones unless you’re planning on buying something like the 250 Ohm version of the DT 770 Pros.
Your signal is most vaunerable to interference before it gets amplified, so if the output from your DAC (if you’re doing a separate DAC and amp) isn’t balanced, you’ll be risking picking up noise from whatever may be near the cable on the way to the amp. If your DAC is in your computer, it might cause some ugly digital noise. This, of course, varies grately on your PC build, DAC and whatever else might be in your room.
Easiest way to get around this and get piece of mind, IMO. is a combined DAC+Amp that’s outside of your computer.
On Linux, I’ve never really had trouble with drivers. But then again, I’ve not used many of the DAC+Amps that are more consumer oriented. I mostly use the audio-gear / music-recording-oriented units.
But before all that. Headphones. Yes. Headphones. Ditch the USB headphones, get yourself something nice. Something from a company that makes microphones, and not keyboards.
Easy way to get some starting recommendations is HiFi Guides. Decide if you want open or closed, and browse away. 
For gaming and shows, I’d say go open-back, it gives you a larger and more natural sound stage, which is nice for enjoying entertainment in the privacy of your own home. Unless you have obnoxious background noise you want to block out. Open back won’t be doing you any favours there. So if you’ll be traveling or going to LANs with the same set, then closed will be better.
3 Likes
I have yet to find anyone who has bough a fiio k3 and didnt enjoy it over their stock sound. Its well supported in linux as well. I wouldnt get a card, but a USB dac is a solid bet.
2 Likes
Most mid-range to high end boards drive 250 Ohm perfectly fine.
Source: Using one.
Where you’re getting in Trouble is when you’re going 600 Ohm and more, but not even beyerdynamic recommends this for normal people.
1 Like
True. I’ve just heard from a few other technician-friends that their 250 Ohms will have an unstable stereo balance at certain volumes from their cheaper amps, but easier-to-drive cans will not have the same problem. But yes, as long as you’re not cheaping out or going extreme with the resistance in you cans, you’ll be fine. Hard to mess up nowadays.
Sanity check here: the flow from source to your ears should be reasonable.
Your 128 kbit rip from the 90s wont do well with an expensive high end equiptment. Likewise you really cant hear much details from your cheap can if your source is a 192hz 24bit audio.
Find your sweet spot with your actual available budget. Sound systems with “purity of experience” tends to differ in opinion with a more gamer oriented experience. Consider that bass is valuable to have in an immersive gaming experience if you are also heading to that direction.
Also is also important to ask how you feel about wireless: is it essential to your experience? Have you tried a wireless experience (that you didnt know you needed)?
1 Like
That certainly happens with lower end motherboards that really just have the basics. Some of the higher end boards on the other hand (the AX370 K7 being one of them) even come with automatic impedance adjustment so they adjust the amp internally automatically, meaning your windows settings always remain the same no matter the impedance of the headphones. If that really works without issue I have no experience with though (since I have only 1 headphone and can’t test it).
As others already pointed out: on-board DACs AMP+DAC combos are perfectly adequate for most uses these days. Unless you have higher impedance headphones or/and old board there shouldn’t be much point in a dedicated sound-card.
But if you do have an old board that can’t drive your headphones properly and don’t want to upgrade, then I can say that Xonar DX card works well.
On my old 4th-gen intel/Haswell board the DAC AMP+DAC combo was too weak for 80 ohm headphones (works but with low volume). Xonar DX fixed that and works with linux out of the box. (but the advanced features like built-in equalizer are locked behind an Asus windows program)
Sorry for being that guy, but just to be clear, DACs don’t drive the headphones, they just convert between digital and analog, the amp does the driving. Even if they’re combined to one unit, they’re different parts of the circuit. There. I did the thing. I’ll leave now.
1 Like
Yeah, you are right, I fixed the post, but afaik it’s next to impossible to buy a consumer DAC without a builtin amp.
1 Like