I usually listen to music on my desktop PC, but today I decided to bring my Truthear Shio and M60x to the office as most of my colleagues were on a work trip. After hooking everything up to my laptop and pressing play, I very quickly noticed the treble was harsher than what I was used to.

Upon getting home, I did some (non-blind) testing and the difference in treble was certainly there.

  • Music source: Tidal (FLAC)
  • DAC: Truthear Shio
  • Headphones: M60x, DT990

This outcome doesn’t make sense to me; surely the data coming out of the USB-C ports of my desktop PC and my work laptop should be the same. Has anyone encountered something similar?

  • coldmexicantea@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I had similar issue with porta pro and it turned out to be an EQ thing. Try plugging your setup into another computer or a phone and see if it’s any different

  • Unbelievable_Girth@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Absolutely. I got a random CX31993 dongle because the treble on my laptop’s built-in DAC was unbearable. Got rid of the treble, but the buzzing sound is still there :(

  • ku1185@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I’ve experienced something similar at times. May just be crappy USB ports that’s leaking more noise than it should? Dunno.

    Try turning on airplane mode, changing USB power settings, overall power settings to performance mode (or power saver mode?), etc. That’s after you make sure no other effects are being applied (e.g., make sure you’re in exclusive mode and some have said that the “disable all enhancements” setting makes a difference even in exclusive mode).

    Try comparing to your phone?

  • FromWitchSide@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I think it is. I’ve first run into it with Apple dongle (CS46L06) which sounded like it had boosted harsh treble when I connected it to USB C in a PC. I’ve not heard that when I recently connected it to front case USB A of the same PC.

    Also my CS-Pro CS43131 dongle seems to sound differently from every device, and is just confusing me a lot.

    I mention that because I recall some discussions about CS43131 implementation in dongles being sensitive to USB power, and because Shio runs CS43198 which is kind of similar.