do i need a dac/amp?

[Oliverng4Ng]

my motherboard is a MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 - im not too sure about how good the on board audio is, but its a pretty cheap motherboard so id assume the on-board aduio would be cheap aswell. Not sure if this is of any use but the audio codec is Realtek ALC887

my headphones are the audio technica m50x - and the impedance is 38ohms with a sensitivity of 99db

i dont know if this is of any use but i use the ath m50x on my samsung note 4 and i guess if i were to get a dac/amp it would need to be portable.

so i was looking into getting this https/www.massdrop.com/buy/zorloo-zuperdac seeing as they're on mass drop and are much cheaper now; but saying that they're still 40 pounds. I was just wondering if it would be worth it in terms of making my headphones "sound better".

i was looking around and most people said that the m50x are pretty easy to run so they wont need an amp, but at the same time some said that they will sound better - so kind of stuck, any help would be appreciated

 

[Blze001]

You don't NEED a DAC/AMP, however you will notice the improvement. The default MB sound cards are kinda like built-in speakers in televisions: better than nothing, but you probably should get something better.

My go-to recommendation for folks like you is the FiiO E10K. $75 (which is like 65 pounds ish I think?), which may seem a little pricey, but you get a really solid DAC and AMP that won't hold you back if you upgrade down the road. One feature that's nice is it has a line-out, so you can get a 3.5mm to RCA cable and use it with an even better amp if you get bitten by the audio bug, or with powered speakers.

Another benefit is the E10K puts the sound processing away from all the noisy EM stuff in the case, those USB portable-drive style ones can sometimes pick up interference if they aren't well made or your system puts off a lot of EM noise.

 

[Oliverng4Ng]

You don't NEED a DAC/AMP, however you will notice the improvement. The default MB sound cards are kinda like built-in speakers in televisions: better than nothing, but you probably should get something better.

My go-to recommendation for folks like you is the FiiO E10K. $75 (which is like 65 pounds ish I think?), which may seem a little pricey, but you get a really solid DAC and AMP that won't hold you back if you upgrade down the road. One feature that's nice is it has a line-out, so you can get a 3.5mm to RCA cable and use it with an even better amp if you get bitten by the audio bug, or with powered speakers.

Another benefit is the E10K puts the sound processing away from all the noisy EM stuff in the case, those USB portable-drive style ones can sometimes pick up interference if they aren't well made or your system puts off a lot of EM noise.

hi thanks for the reply, was just wondering will the change be massive like night and day; or is it just something e.g. an audiophile can only pick up