Oh and btw., I don’t have USB-C on the Asus, so I’ll need to use a converter. I suppose since it’s data over a USB interface, converter won’t affect quality, right? I can’t imagine how it would, but just to be sure.
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Yes, exactly. Plus, I think those dongles only use USB-2 speeds so you’re completely safe.
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Is this the same, or at least an equivalent? As it would take only about one day instead of weeks to be delivered
It should be equivalent for the tests, but I can’t vouch for its quality. The dongle market can be quite unpredictable when it comes to quality so buying these random ones can be a shot in the dark. For the tests it will work fine 
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Hm, yeah the quality… Well, the price is equivalent so I guess it’s ok…
The thing is, I cannot find any video reviews of AXAGON DAC dongles, but if you say it’s fine, I’ll get it.
EDIT: The Alza page has a review of someone saying it beats his 1500€ laptop jack tho.
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This is good, although not a high bar to beat. You would be surprised how many laptop dacs are of the lowest of low quality 
It’s inexcusable given how cheap some great modern chips are to buy in bulk and how simple the circuits around them are.
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Yeah, seems like my Dell Vostro 15 is a victim of this approach too.
The display is also ridiculously low quality for the price. Like 56% sRGB is bonkers…
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I was just wondering.
Yes, I think that’s very good.
I’m just not used to that from other forums. In some, the admins ask you to stay on topic.
I noticed at least one popular topic on audio so I figured I’ll be good. And I already know the people here a bit, so why not
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If in doubt, put it in the “Lounge” category 
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Aaalrighty…
After less than a minute of listening with this thing plugged into the laptop – I can already tell this is nearly a perfect match (details) to the Asus
My Xiaomi phone feels almost the same.
If anyone wants to try, I used Tristam - Till It’s Over (0:51) as my benchmark song. I’m not giving a link, if you have a premium account somewhere, please look it up, it should be pretty much on every major platform.
If your audio quality matches mine, you should be able to hear background noise at given timestamp in the song. Most likely something went wrong in mastering, I never noticed it before, as my setup couldn’t make it noticeable.
Oh boy, thank you for this recommendation 
Now that I think about it, I could have gotten the variant with a USB-C port as well, so I could charge my phone but oh well…
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No worries It’s really surprising what you can get nowadays for such little money.
Do you still notice the difference between the two computers?
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I haven’t tested them back-to-back yet. Just from memory, so far based on one song only, I don’t think so.
Should I test Asus-jack and Dell-USB? Or both using the HAC dongle
Both with the dongle I am curious about it
Correct, even without the adapter it’s identified as USB-2 audio
I think if you would blind tested me to tell which computer is playing the audio… I would have likely no idea lol 
If the loudness was the same or randomly changed, that is.
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I don’t know what I should be hearing, that’s generally a problem with electronic music: there’s no ground truth too compared to. I’d say it sounds distorted - is that what you mean? I also think it’s intentional, given how it goes away at about 1:08. I’ve just listened on a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 3 via Bluetooth, then on the Beyerdynamic DT-770 connected to a cheap Chinese DAC/AMP, hooked up via optical (S/PDIF, Toslink) to the motherboard. The Beyerdynamic is more unforgiving. However, I’m not really critical about quality, I can’t reliably tell medium quality (>=128k VBR) MP3 from uncompressed. If you meant the ‘distortion’, I think even the $10 Panasonic headphones we use for TV would easily reveal that problem via the phone’s internal DAC. (They are very nice headphones for the price, I cannot recommend them enough: Panasonic Rp-Ht010. Not very durable though, the plastics give up after a few years.)
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Yes, exactly that part of the audio. Most noticeable at 0:55.
Yeah, though hearing that part is pretty new to me 
and it sounds kind of… wrong. I’ll probably get used to that.
You should have seen my Cloud Alpha 
Almost anything made of plastic on them is sticky, the leatherette slowly and completely turned into dust, the cable volume dial crackles (and one side doesn’t always play) after a few months of gentle usage.
Big props to HyperX for sending a free replacement cable and ear pads tho.
Despite this, the headset is actually great. Both sound, removable cable, removable mic and comfy even for hours.
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My Asus has S/PDIF out, I always wandered what could it be
EDIT:
The thing is, I don’t remember hearing that distortion, ever, or at least not noticeable like this. It was probably always compressed on my setups so it wasn’t as prominent.
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I’ve had a listen (well, 3 listens) with the Pana headphones:
- connected to the laptop’s jack
- connected to the phone via a USB-C cable, using the phone’s DAC
- a cheap Hama DAC plugged into the phone.
I’m not 100% sure I would spot the issue if I didn’t know it’s there. The main difference between the previous listening tests and this one is the headphones, I think: the Pana has ‘warm’ sound, ‘recessed highs’ etc. as an ‘audiophile’ may phrase it.
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Are human’s sound memory as bad as human color memory?
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