Elgrindio
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2016
- Posts
- 20
- Likes
- 10
Hey everybody,
I just read this article on The Wirecutter about portable DAC/Amps and they basically came to the conclusion that, with the quality of modern soundcards in modern computers, there really is no need for external DACs now, at least not $100-300 ones. Here's the link, and below a few choice excerpts. Tell me what you think. And please, if you agree with this based on personal experience, don't be afraid to say so. Thanks!
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-headphone-amp-with-built-in-dac/
"We determined that most people are unlikely to notice a substantial increase in sound quality over a modern laptop or phone’s built-in headphone jack."
"We included a PC laptop, a MacBook Pro, an iPad Mini, and an iPhone 7 in our blind testing, and the level of difference between them and the best sounding of our picks was so minute as to make no difference to the average listener at all. Brent described the amount of variation between his favorite DAC/amp in this test and the laptop headphone jack as a “0.5 percent improvement.”"
"So, after days of rigorous testing, we came to the surprising conclusion that unless your headphone jack is broken or you have a really old computer with a terrible sound card, chances are, you probably don’t need a USB DAC."
I just read this article on The Wirecutter about portable DAC/Amps and they basically came to the conclusion that, with the quality of modern soundcards in modern computers, there really is no need for external DACs now, at least not $100-300 ones. Here's the link, and below a few choice excerpts. Tell me what you think. And please, if you agree with this based on personal experience, don't be afraid to say so. Thanks!
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-headphone-amp-with-built-in-dac/
"We determined that most people are unlikely to notice a substantial increase in sound quality over a modern laptop or phone’s built-in headphone jack."
"We included a PC laptop, a MacBook Pro, an iPad Mini, and an iPhone 7 in our blind testing, and the level of difference between them and the best sounding of our picks was so minute as to make no difference to the average listener at all. Brent described the amount of variation between his favorite DAC/amp in this test and the laptop headphone jack as a “0.5 percent improvement.”"
"So, after days of rigorous testing, we came to the surprising conclusion that unless your headphone jack is broken or you have a really old computer with a terrible sound card, chances are, you probably don’t need a USB DAC."
