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Difference between USB Soundcard and USB Amp?

post #1 of 4
1/17/10 at 5:39pm
Thread Starter 
Title says it all. What is the difference?
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post #2 of 4
1/17/10 at 5:58pm
they are actually the same thing. they both should have a DAC and an amp onboard.
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post #3 of 4
1/17/10 at 6:17pm
Thread Starter 
So there is no difference? That's what I was expecting.

But if a USB amp is the same as a USB soundscard does that mean that a soundcard and an amp is somehow also the same?
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post #4 of 4
1/17/10 at 6:30pm
If you're talking about consumer sound cards (i.e. not pro-audio/studio ones), the main difference is that a USB sound card will likely to support encoding of Dolby, DTS, EAX HD, etc, while USB DACs are usually limited to just 16bit/44.1Khz PCM stream.
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