Are DACs one of the great scams of the 20th century?

With that broad of a definition Op is claiming having audio on your computer is a scam. At some point there has to be some form of a dac.

what if your headphones already had a volume knob

>literally buying snake oil

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No. They are necessary to convert digital information (your stored audio) into an analogue signal (sound) that your brain can make sense of and enjoy.

How are Crown or other pro amplifiers?

This. Fucking retards confusing standalone DACs and DAC chips that are found in every digital audio system.

I have a standalone ASUS DAC. It runs off of my high-end Lenovo desktop. I'm no audiophile, all I know is it outputs 7.1 surround and sounds far better than running the PC output through speakers without it. It also is a headphone amp which I find useful.

OP posted an image of a product that was definitely made in the 21st century

Surprised there is no cheap chinese DAC that is just as good as the overpriced ones.

>How do you think CD players worked?

>topping d10
i dont think an audiophool accessory is gonna get much cheaper than that

go with akm dac chips instead

This guy gets it

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I have this exact dac, and itscomfy af. Expensive though

They have their use. The better solution is to get a real amplifier or surround receiver. They used SPDIF a decade ago and now they use HDMI; it's digital and what soundcard you have doesn't matter. They all have good phono outputs for headphones. And they've got a built-in DAC. It's the better solution.

Where these DAC/AMP solutions do have a place is small rooms where there's no room for real speakers and your speaker options are limited to those PC speaker things or something else the size of typical bluetooth speakers. If you have a high-end pair of headphones and that's the space you've got then sure, go get a DAC/AMP.

The way I see it DAC/AMPs are toys for those who can't afford a proper audio setup or don't have room for one. And I'm not talking some $20000 setup, $1000 is more than enough to get you a good surround receiver and speakers. Why would I use OPs choice over picture related (which is what I am currently using)? The one argument I see is that way back when I was a student my room wasn't big enough for that or speakers (or much else for that matter). I used a simple pair of "PC speakers" back then.

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What if your headphones were the volume knob?

Nah, and yah.

You get something like on the OP pic if you want to use it with some good powered speakers like Neumann kh420. And it is definitely not a toy.

No. The only way to listen to music is to convert it to an analog format.
Now, maybe you're against listening music, but even if you're just reading the notation you're witnessing a digital to analog conversion.
We can't directly process digital data, at least not yet.

who was headphones

My ears are broken and I listen to wubstep with koss porta pros: the post

You can build a stereo setup off Craigslist for $100. People are giving these away for models with hdmi.
The early 2000's models will have optical inputs and better power components.
Id be embarrassed to have those pussy looking boxes on my desk while paying so much.

This.
If you have some strange need for HDMI switching you can even get newer receivers cheap now since everyone is upgrading to HDMI2/2.1 for 4K60 and HDR.

You could literally have bought an av receiver

Apple USB-C adapter is a full dac for like 10 or 20 bucks and measures better than some 100 dacs. Doesnt work well with high impedance so you'll want an amp

onboard audio was the shit in 20th century.

Yes, most of them are either crap/overpriced/crap+overpriced

Topping D10 is fantastic

You probably have shitty headphones.

yes :'( would you buy me
amazon.de/beyerdynamic-Over-Ear-Stereo-Kopfhörer-kabelgebunden-Smartphone-Silber/dp/B0024NK344/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541511384&sr=8-1&keywords=beyerdynamic DT 990 Edition 32 Ohm Over-Ear-Stereo
im not picky

>converts data into sound
nice scam bro

Most music recordings these days are digital, and need to be turned into analog so that they can be played through speakers or headphones. A DAC does that.
The one in your motherboard might be noisy or faulty in some other way, in which case a cheap external one will solve the issue. Just don't overpay for it; Making an audibly transparent DAC isn't hard these days, with cheap off the shelf chink chips that do most of the work.
If your DAC is already measurably transparent, getting some fancy expensive DAC won't help improve your sound in any way.
If you use headphones, getting an amp like the JDS Atom or the Schiit Magni 3 might make a bigger difference. Then again, get new headphones (I recommend Sennheiser HD600) rather than / before you get a dedicated amp, if your headphones are shit in the first place.
Pic: My setup.

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op fucking up

op trying to salvage the situation and failing

My pet rock lasts forever, its few hundred millions of years old.

Well, the Sony PCM-F1 already was transparent at a performance several orders of magnitude worse than cheap converters these days. So you can basically buy whatever and if you can't hear a problem, then there is none.

I use a cheap plastic SPDIF box to achieve galvanic isolation between my active speakers and my PC. Otherwise they started whistling with CPU load dependant pitch.

>not converting PCM to 1bit PWM then using the limited bandwidth in your transducers to low-pass filter
Plebs. Intermodulation distortion is a meme.

Yes and Apple, ironically can save you from being scammed

audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/

The one in your motherboard might be noisy or faulty in some other way, in which case a cheap external one will solve the issue.
no nigga
no
its not 2006 anymore we actually get decent dacs that do not have noise in motherboards

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Fucking wish, user.
Fucking wish.

>usb-c headphone adapters
>'saving you' from being scammed

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Id like to understand or someone explain to me how does a DAC do anything when the input is RCA and the output is 3.5mm, in other words, what the hell does it do when you’re putting in a analogue signal and getting out a analogue signal as well?

Where have you seen that, can you show the model?

What's your point? A dedicated DAC will almost certainly have an amp.

You're thinking of a preamp. A traditional DAC accepts only digital sources (toslink/coaxial/USB). A Preamp only accepts analog sources (XLR/phono/mono/RCA). Most people buy a combined DAC/Preamp since it's one unit and allows volume control.

My brother fell pray to some audiophoolary and bought something called a yiffy dac, not sure of model now buts it’s a small square box has rca input on the front and usb power/data in the back as well as 3.5mm output in the front. I say audiophoolary because his dac is defective since it gives out static, he brought it up with the store who sold it to him and I swear to god they told him some bullshit about it being the power cables in his house and he fucking believes it. Told him so no other equipment has that issue, your phones don’t have that issue your tv your computers all your devices, but this dac does and suddenly it’s power cables, let me guess he wanted you to buy a power conditioner device? his silence was enough of a reply

>DAC/AMPs are toys for those who can't afford a proper audio setup
But its the opposite

>poorfags
Sound card as dac, and speakers with integrated amps

>normalfags
A/V receivers

>richfags
Dedicated DACs (or at least high end receivers with preouts), discrete amp(s)

They are better but they're still trash. Sound cards dont even work on good sound equipment because computers are so noisy electrically. Fuzz and hum everywhere

If you have an XLR mic, they're pretty much compulsory.

And if you have a DAC / mixer combo, like me, it can manage everything audio for you, all in one device. So you can control your mic, the input from your system (PC) and your output (speakers or something else). Additionally, you also have other options like adding an instrument, if at some point you want to dabble with some music. But for most people that's not the case.
And ofc good DACs have a number of good input and output ports, which gives you lots of flexibility in terms of what devices you can use to produce sound and which devices you want to use to output that sound (over unbalanced or balanced lines, XLR, RCA, TRS etc).

But it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to buy expensive interfaces like RME (from OP's pic) if you are not a musician or sound engineer. For a bit more than 100 bucks you can get a decent and useful DAC which can manage all your sound in an external box.

Internal, discrete soundcards are also fine, though again for professional needs you might need more capable and expensive soundcards that offer specific I/O options.

What does Jow Forums think about R2R dacs?

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These are ground loop issues and have nothing to do with electromagnetic noise inside a PC case. Depending on the amp design, you get a ground loop connecting the amp or active speakers to the PC in any way. Even an external DAC is likely to not solve the issue, unless it gets only the signal via USB or SPDIF and is powered by a separate PSU.

I have my O2 headphone amp permanently plugged into a soundcard I bought over a decade ago when I was an idiot, but its output is dead silent noise wise and there is no ground loop.

Waiting for my d30, bought on shenzhenaudio for ~100 tolars. Pretty excited

Nah, one of the more reasonable audiophile products out there.

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Clean your table, crackhead

>I bought a piece of garbage in a pretty (but cheap) tinfoil case

>muh ground loop
Always the same useless shit

>Even an external DAC is likely to not solve the issue, unless it gets only the signal via USB or SPDIF and is powered by a separate PSU.
You mean like any real DAC, and not the poverty tier boxes Jow Forums usually posts. I dont give a shit about your poorfag headphone amp, if you have sensitive and powerful equipment hooked up to a pc, you will get noise because they arent designed with that in mind.

>unless it gets only the signal via USB or SPDIF and is powered by a separate PSU
Is there even another way? I run toslink just for the extra piece of mind.