Are USB DACs a meme or are they actually superior to my motherboard's DAC?

Largely true.

But...

My 200 dollar set up sounds better than your junkstore set up.

Audio engineerfag here. Depends on the mobo. If you're just a regular consumer theres literally nothing wrong with realtek et.al and nothing to gain with an expensive external DA/AD.

they are worth if you need a second output or maybe something to get different sources from like a Blu ray player and your PC to output to the same headphone with just a switch. And this all coming with some kind of better sound quality.
I have a DAC with USB input from my PC and optical input fro my PS4.
If you have shit headphones then getting an ok DAC, from 70 to 150$ won't improve the quality much, but getting a really cheap chink one would get you that, more inputs and output options.
There are also PCIe/PCI soundcards, they were the sound meme up until 2012 or so.

And, like some anons say, if you don't care about in/outputs, just one headphone jack, then it will matter if your mobo has a shit chip or low power for your headphones.
Just test it yourself and get your own answer, it will probably be placebo tho.

do you listen by looking at graphs?

They're not a meme and guaranteed they're better than whatever onboard shit you have.

Some autist will come out of the woodwork to claim otherwise. Ignore him; he is an imbecile who has no taste and should be pitied.

they're not shoved right up next to a several-hundred watt power supply so that's generally a good thing
USB dacs won't be that much better than a good mobo dac, but they will be better isolated unless your desk is made of tesla coils or something

What kind of fucking stupid argument this is. If something is measurably better, its better.

It's a meme. It's all a meme. Everything's a fucking meme.

The DNA of the soul.

Why are they called DACs? Isn't DAC only one component of a sound card?

It's a digital-analog converter, it takes the digital audio signal from the PC and converts it to an analog audio signal. You're gonna need an amplifier if you want to be able to actually use this signal for anything and control its volume.

KEK. This is the best description possible.

Mobo DACS can pick up fan noise on the analog conversion (depending on ur system.) I've never had that problem with an external.
>t.echoing others. First hand experience.

sound cards are better than usb garbage

I have that exact one. I don't know if it's a meme but that's certainly why I bought it.

There is a point where you average GI Joe won't notice a difference depending on equipment used.
I can't hear much of a difference between my motherboard's DAC and a Fiio E10K (rear line that bypasses the AMP) on Fidelio X2 and MSR7 unless I focus really hard.

ALC 1220 is better than most DACs you can buy under a hundred dollars. Go above that and the DAC will have the advantage.

Not him but that's not the point. They are better by measurement means they are better, whether you can hear the difference or not depends on many other factors, and even if the differences aren't noticeable by human, they are still better on paper.

>and even if the differences aren't noticeable by human, they are still better on paper
You're honestly paying for e-peen at that point.

>ALC 1220 is better than most DACs you can buy under a hundred dollars
topping D30?

>topping D30
Don't have any personal experience with that one, it's worth a shot.

>it's worth a shot
Which dacs do you have experience with?

None that you would know I'm afraid. I live on the ass end of europe, I assume you are in the US.

>ass end of europe
and yes I am in america. :(

>Theres some use cases like if your studio monitors pick up electric noise from gpu
Is this common? My board does this and getting a USB dac fixed it for me.

Dude, everything is possible, if you can imagine it, it can happen. If I leave my gaymen mouse on 1000 Hz sample rate, whenever I move it there is coil whine coming from my motherboard. I have to decrease the sample rate to 500 to stop it.

This is definitely true, there is so much snake oil in consumer audio that it should be illegal.

Few examples:
Audio files above 16bit/44.1kHz are pointless for playback

Competently designed DACs should sound identical, as long as your onboard audio doesn't produce audible noise, you don't need an external one.

The single most important part of an audio system is the end point, barring badly designed or faulty source gear, speakers/headphones make up for 99.9% of the audio quality

>superior
Of course.
>enough to throw real money down on
That's for you to decide.

what's a good dac that can slot into a 5.25' bay?

Not really superior in terms of quality, but my house has power grounding and my USB DAC has much better isolation compared to my motherboard's DAC. I used to hear a constant humming until I touched something metal, which was rather annoying. With the USB DAC, this is eliminated. Worth it imo
Plus it's much easier to connect to my AMP than from my motherboard.

>buy meme DAC in order to have optical output for PS4
>of course sounds fine, no noise, it's optical after all
>DAC also has headphone output
>try it
>noisy as fuck
>just using the controller's headphone output (which includes some bluetooth audio compression) sounds better
>PC which is connected to the same power socket has headphone output with literally zero noise
External DACs are a meme.

>tfw spent $250 NEETbucks on a DAC audiogoyim placebo shit
feelsbad man

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Only if it has tubes in it otherwise it sounds too sterile.

>buy a shitty DAC off Aliexpress
>*BEEP* ALL DACS BAD

I've been thinking about getting one for awhile now but my onboard sounds good enough so I haven't spent the money on one yet.

>Audio files above 16bit/44.1kHz are pointless for playback
you surely mean 16bit/48kHz

I've got this one. I don't even have a Mic or a reason to record anything but i could.

Other than that its a perfect interface for the monitors i have at my workstation.

People obsess over the weirdest shit with audio.

The only thing that did help with audio was i switched to TRS cables which stopped a buzz i was getting.

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And don't most of these devices actually come with an amplifier? They have volume control.

Can I use a DAC to easily listen to audio from two different sources?

Depends on your headphones and if you pick up interference.

I wouldn't plug 600 ohm headphones into on-board audio, it's going to sound like shit.

I bought one of these a year ago and.
Zero problems at all, sounds good.

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No, 44.1kHz is already more than enough, assuming the recording is intended to be listened to by humans. The nyquist frequency for that sampling rate is 22.05kHz, and sicne human hearing caps out at 20kHz (or even 17-18kHz as one gets older), it's possible to perfectly recreate all sounds perfectly that are in range of human hearing.

Sure 48kHz doesn't hurt, but once you go into retarded audiophool levels, 196kHz sample rate can actually sound worse than 44.1kHz. CD audio can encode the maximum possible audible fidelity for humans already as it is.