[Headphones4154]

I was wondering, if I have a usb dac that is connected to an amp, does it not get matter if I have onboard audio? In other words, does the "garbage in, garbage out" theory not apply if I use USB?

 

[soupgoblin]

Garbage in garbage out refers to the digital music file that you feed your DAC with. If you feed it with low res digital file (128kbps mp3), no matter how good your dac is, it will sound terrible. Using an external DAC just takes over your onboard built in DAC and amp in the motherboard.

 

[akinari-kun]

In most cases higher quality source components, for example an external USB DAC, can make lower-quality recording sound absolutely terrible, worse than they do from onboard audio as their role is to playback the original untampered-with sound it's being fed.

 

[Headphones4154]

Ohh, ok. I do have apple lossless files for a majority of my library, so a good quality DAC and amp should do me well right? I plan on getting a pair of hd 598 soon.

 

[akinari-kun]

That should be fine.