I have a very short amount of time to decide on rather to buy a DAC or a sound card for my laptop. am trying to imporve the quality of the playback track that my band plays to (I do voice/keys friend plays guitar/keys) and the back track is drums/effects. bass....more of a EBM industrial sound...

so am at the point i need to push a better sound, i would say i want the basses and drums to really boom. from what I understand The next step is to get a DAC, however as its just something am going to try and not really something I can invest 200+ in. I want to buy the best one for around 50$...

Am pretty new to using a laptop on stage, the style we have been writing is like Harsh ebm, industrial ect ect. it sounded okay in a recent event...but I know it could of sounded better.... what are some tools that I can use to improve the sound quality? an external sound card? an audio...