[dima1109]

I've been in a search of a DAC and/or a soundcard, need to upgrade the onboard sound (having to swap music to a DAP to listen to it in some kind of decent quality and without terrible hiss is a hassle). So I've seen people connecting expensive soundcards to external DACs via optical outs, which connect to amps. And I thought - why would anyone do that instead of just getting a good USB DAC and connect it to a good amp instead of also factoring the soundcard into the equation? Does the soundcard -> DAC -> amp -> headphones give better quality than USB DAC -> amp -> headphones?
Sorry if the question is stupid, I can't seem to find an answer.

 

[Joeywhat]

Some people do prefer cards that have good analog outputs as well as S/PDIF out. I'm sure there are other reasons...I don't use digital so I don't know.

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

USB DAC can only take you a certain distance. Higher end Dedicated DAC's are far more superior to most USB DAC's due to several factors. If you are looking to upgrade in the future, you are better off using the digital output from a soundcard and feeding that into a dedicated DAC and then to an amp in which case you can upgrade the DAC later on.

You cannot generalize that soundcard->DAC->Amp is better than USB-DAC->Amp.

But option A gives you more flexibility and you can go much farther than you would with option B

 

[Ogresmash]

Most USB DACs can only do 16/44.1khz for various reasons, and use USB power which can lead to bad sound quality. There are some exceptions such as the Benchmark DAC-1 USB, but for the most part dedicated standalone DACs will be of higher quality than USB DACs.