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Originally posted by numacross
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Well of course it's not an audiophile device, but for 15€ they provide excellent quality. Most people don't have headphones that would exhibit the hiss.
Internal PCIe sound cards have higher chances of picking up interference. I've had both a X-Fi and a ASUS Xonar that would sometimes pick up sounds when the PC was under heavy load (and this was with a high-end Seasonic PSU). Having a GPU that eats a few hundred watts above the PCIe sound card can have an effect regardless of how good the shielding is. Since then I've been using USB DACs exclusively and haven't had that problem.
Have you tested the same headphones as the Sharkoon DAC was tested with?
I think the Sharkoons are nice for the price but you can not compare it to the rather "premium" soundblaster. As a DIY Hifi guy I for sure do not say price equals soundquality that is wrong. So even very cheap stuff can sound great thats why I was mentioning the onboard sound.
Don't get me wrong I don't have Golden Ears but I have listend to a lot of Systems in my life yet. Build some good ones too and had the chance to listen to some considered Audophile Sytems like Burmester 069 Reference CDP with complete referenceline chain, also B&W Nautilus or MBL Radial Speakers.
What I have learned well designed cheap stuff can give you the same chill / kick of very good stuff maybe not the of the best ones but close enough to state it is "audiophile".
E.g. the KZ Ate or KZ ZNS Pro X IEM are asthonishing considering their 20$ price tag. Easily playing against 100€+ gear.
But if something gives hiss there is almost no chance that it can push you into the audionirvana. (except of Vacuum tubes)
The mentioned onboard sound is even more clean seperated without harshness sounding then my good old heavily modded (almost rebuild) Marantz CD 63.
All my other sound emitting devices Samsung, Sony Phone, old iPad, multiple Notebooks and mainboards do not exhibit anything near. And the most of the devices have a hiss too which is clearly audible. So my IE are on the more revealing side.
But yes for a scientific comparison I need the Meze 99 Noir or SteelSeries Arctis 1 as the review guy. Usually even if you don't hear the hiss but you are close to hiss the sound is not clear separated and already mushy. That is the major reason why hiss for me is a no-go. It correlates with clear* sound.
According to Internal EMI pickups. Even if shielded it is the common powersupply and ground which is full of spikes and transients because the GFX/CPU is sucking and chopping current like hell when powerstates are switched. As said by you a good PSU helps to have at least a quiet baseline and a good line regulation to regulate against that spikes(better to say the pits).
This can be further prevented with proper local decoupling and using some Voltage LDO with high PSRR even up to 80db in the mhz regime like the LT3042 before the DAC and components following it in the signalchain afterwards.
But not sure if this is fissible on a PCIe card. (btw thats why I consider the AE-9 superior to AE-7 - more decoupling Caps)
With a USB stick it is more difficult to pack all that extra EMI suppression onto it. Besides the 5V of the USB is also not very clean especially when other peripherials are emitting their garbage and bad design EMI into it.(e.g. wireless devices).
edit: *clear in the sense of clean, transparent and natural. It can sound clear also transparent whilst having harsh components making it unnatural almost metalic.
. It's awful even using the line-in in the car where I catch myself turning the volume 3x higher than I ever have to get "audible" music
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