internal sound card? external sound card or dac to improve sound from my Pc

[Czarny9120]

hello everyone

I play most of my music through the pc.

I have a marantz 8005 set so the amp and cd player.

the thing is that my pc is a sff desktop what means that I do not have much space inside the case for upgrades.

I was thinking about internal sound card but it has to be a low profile one so I got a Asus xonar dx one but then to connect it I need to remove a graphic card and this is not an option.

so I bought one day as a trial a asus u3 external sound card and there is a big improvement over the on board card.

now the question is if I should buy a better external card or a DAC? or shall I just upgrade the full pc and then go for Asus essence dsx??

I will appreciate any ideas as at the moment I am a bit confused . ...

 

[iMark]

Have you thought of an Apple Airport Express? You can place one near the amp and stream music from your PC to the stereo. It's got a very decent DAC on board but you could connect it to an external DAC with a Toslink cable.

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MC414B/A/airport-express?fnode=b8cb13f1031dcce624a9d6df509df042517a8b343b0f84270c0478fc83afd7d49476738fd04a2c35dfb2111a835242ee2058f4f59aef076403eddd1294f7b947509340001c90392d4279fba3d59f9c30d2ac153907f25af21e02c1005fbeb610

 

[insider9]

Depending on the source of your music you've got a couple of options

1) if you're using streaming services Chromecast Audio would be the cheapest and a decent solution

2) if you also play FLAC or mp3 stored on your pc then external DAC would be prefered (due to size of the case). DAC and soundcard are in my case interchangable terms. People who use pc's more will call it a sound card. Hifi entusiasts a DAC. Or you can use your pc as a server and still use Chromecast Audio.

One reason I would not suggest an internal solution even if you were to upgrade your pc is the fact that other components will play a part so it'll be easier and cheaper to go the external route. If you would do that then get a second hand Essence STX and not DSX.

 

[muljao]

I'd buy a DAC in your position. Once you have a physical DAC in place, it does not matter what you decide to play, the sound is fed directly to the hifi and you don't have to worry about streaming or wifi (of course these can be added, but if you have a dedicated dac your pc acts as a source, where even lossless cd quality files can be ripped for free from your own cd collection)

A simple and cheap one that I use transformed the way I listen to music

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SMSL-M3-Headphone-Amplifier-Asynchronous/dp/B01C2OAANI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477638346&sr=8-1&keywords=smsl+m3

It allows me to get cd quality lossless files from my laptop, and also I can use my bluray player as a cd player through its co axial out/dac coax in.

Of course the one I have linked is a cheap yet well reviewed model. There are more upmarket hifi models such as the Audiolab m-dac or a cambridge audio dacmagic 100

Edit- depending on your cd player and the dac you buy, it is often possible to get even better performance from your own cd player if the dac you buy is of better quality than the dac built into your cd player. Just use one of the dc player digital outs to the dac. This probably applies if your cd player is budget and you get a higher end dac