mirh wrote:The thing is a bit more complex.
I don't understand this comment in context of your broader reply or what you've quoted from me. This seems to imply that you disagree with something I said, but I see the rest of your reply as being in full agreement with what I said. 😊 😀
One thing to point out about the Tom's thing (since I clicked into it again and read the whole thing this time 🤣) - they actually did not compare to a "$2000 soundcard." They compared an Asus soundcard, a Realtek built-in soundcard, and two outboard D/A converters. The $2000 part was a mid-range studio D/A converter - the Benchmark DAC2. It's not capable of any sort of simulacrum processing or other multimedia features like the Asus or Realtek, it's just an output device. Ultimately all their "review" seemed to compare was whether or not each device was adept at driving stereo headphones for stereo music. The obvious answer there should be "of course they are, if everything is working right." The headphones they picked are potentially an issue too - the K550 are designed to be very easily driven by mobile devices, so they're fairly "easy" for anything they plug into. I'm skeptical the HD 800 performed identically across all four devices though, because they have a fairly reactive impedance, and variations in output impedance will thus result in changes in their frequency response (and all of this is measurable and calculable). It's also worth noting that onboard solutions tend not to be as great for driving headphones overall, because they're designed as line-drivers, not headphone amplifiers, and thus generally don't like delivering lots of current. Of course none of this means "you must go out and buy a soundcard" - just that Tom's test isn't something I'd consider conclusive/absolute on the matter. Onboard can be perfectly fine if everything works right, but the option of a stand-alone card is nice in the event that onboard isn't functional, or if you need more I/O abilities (and Tom's does note the I/O abilities thing). Gaming is also another serious consideration - the DAC devices that Tom's tested have no capacity for DirectSound, OpenAL, 3D audio, etc so if any of that matters to you, you will need something "ahead" of them that can perform whatever calculations you like (and with the USB-based device that could be impossible to achieve depending on what you want).