jagorev
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Posts
- 3,316
- Likes
- 15
Quote:
You can use digital/optical or USB, usually.
If you go USB, it totally ignores the cheap soundcard, since the DAC becomes your "soundcard." If you use the optical cable to go from soundcard to DAC, your cheap soundcard becomes the limiting factor - any kinds of RF interference or jitter in the internal soundcard will be passed on to the DAC. Along with a previous poster, I don't really see a reason to go from internal soundcard to external DAC via optical cable, when USB DACs are available. I would think that minimizing the number of things in the signal path, and taking all the audio processing outside the computer's case, would be preferable. But I guess having the flexibility of using non-USB DACs is nice.
Originally Posted by Medikit Can someone explain to me how you hook up to a DAC, do you use digital in? So if you go digital from your cheap soundcard to a high end DAC then it totally ignores the soundcard? I don't think I really understand how DAC's work and what kind of source they need. Where is a good place for me to study this? |
You can use digital/optical or USB, usually.
If you go USB, it totally ignores the cheap soundcard, since the DAC becomes your "soundcard." If you use the optical cable to go from soundcard to DAC, your cheap soundcard becomes the limiting factor - any kinds of RF interference or jitter in the internal soundcard will be passed on to the DAC. Along with a previous poster, I don't really see a reason to go from internal soundcard to external DAC via optical cable, when USB DACs are available. I would think that minimizing the number of things in the signal path, and taking all the audio processing outside the computer's case, would be preferable. But I guess having the flexibility of using non-USB DACs is nice.