I was mostly agreeing with you guys I also believe he needs better source gear and something better than youtube. I was just defending on board as a whole as for most people it’s honestly good enough and spending more is honestly not at all worth it. OP is not most people though
I tried to replicate the OPs problem with my setup (x370, Realtek ac 1220 audio). I’m a firm believer of getting the most out of what you have.
When using on board with 1990 pros, @24bit 48khz, with the videos OP linked, it does NOT sound acceptable. When maxing the bit rate and resolution to max or anything above 24 & 128khz, on board does sound a lot better, acceptable. I wouldn’t make buying an external Amp/DAC a priority if OP is happy with a higher resolution, but it definitely would make a difference with the 1990s.
I do wonder if Skype or some other application is changing the audio resolution automatically to something lower (for compatibility reasons) and that’s why he is hearing a sudden distortion.
I am curious if OP has resolved his issue too.
A decent amount of people on this forum are not most people lol
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Skype can mess with audio if you have it set like that, so it could be it
with the wake of programs like discord I’m surprised anyone still uses skype. but honestly not surprised bacuse discord caters to a more gamer or a younger demographic. which is a waste of potential cause discord sounds better
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Lol yeah I ditched skype long ago, teamspeak and discord are great. Although alot of businesses (including the one I work at) deploy a Microsoft suite and people use skype for business a ton
You have to admit though, the Skype sound still brings back memories. Like hearing windows 95 shut down
Old skype maybe, but the new windows 10 skype sounds different
new skype doesnt sound that bad jut worse than the others. and had to use it a couple of times for interviews and tutoring whiel I was in school and the way the program performed just really bad I cant really get into specifics since it’s been a while since I’ve used it but I go pretty damn angry using it. the only issue I truely remember having is joinging a group chat and only 2 out of the other people in the call could hear me and the others couldnt only be fixed by restarting the program or restarting pc. or conving my study group to just use discord.
You’re not suggesting that there’s as much / more noise outside of a computer case than inside… Are you?
What isolation? Even discrete soundcards get EMI running through them from other components.
Clean enough for audiophiles? 
I am saying that in the computer you got high frequency switching noise from the various VRM’s, outside the computer you get USB/Network/Power cables with their respective noise.
Most higher-end mainboards have pretty good filtering against noise on the power rails, there are efforts taken with isolation slots, metal shielding and so on.
For beeing on the same PCB as very noisy components, the isolation is pretty good.
Yes, but that’s going to be a fair bit less noise if you have something external on your desk that’s not right next to something noisy.
Also I would be pretty surprised if an Ethernet cable would be the one creating noise
Ethernet (wired) has a very wide frequency spectrum, pulses on and off during transmission, and except for special flavours of CAT6 and CAT7, has 0 shielding.
What keeps it from inducing its noise into everything is it beeing twisted pair.
When using PoE (some desk phones are powered this way), you get amazing amounts of noise near the ethernet cables.
Ok I would expect PoE to cause issues, but most likely someone’s dac/amp on a desk would not be near a PoE device unless they have a work setup that has to be right next to a phone. Typically Ethernet is realistically not going to cause any noise issues, but instead possibly pick up noise
It causes lots of noise, it just is not near anything it could disturb with it. Ethernet is hardend against outside interference.
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This came up on my google feed.
I had a hard time telling if this was satirical or not
That’s gross…
WHAT?
WHAT THE FUCK!
CAT6 should cost about $1 per 3ft (or 1€ per 1m), CAT7 no more than $1.50.
Even that special looking IP20 RJ45 plug only costs 20€ a piece (normal CAT6 RJ45’s cost 15 cents at most).
You should see the higher end ethernet cables and what they cost lol, 1k isn’t even as high as they can go
Really really tempted to run all super high end cabling in my studio just to piss everyone off (or just continue to use amazon basics lol)