I'm looking to possibly change from an internal PCI-e sound card to something external. But there's one thing I'm confused about: what the devil is the difference between a USB sound card and an external DAC connected to your PC via USB?
From what I've read, they seem to be the exact same thing. They both take the audio from your PC via USB, process it and convert it from digital to analogue and output it to the connected headphones. And yet, when you look at manufacturer's websites, they list USB sound cards and DACs under separate categories! So what's the difference?
In terms of usage, I simply want something that I can plug my headphones and speakers into that avoids any processing of the audio happening inside the PC. For headphones, that seems to be the domain of a DAC or USB sound card (still not sure of the difference!) but for 5.1 speakers, where are you suppose to plug them in? A PCI-e sound card gives you the green, pink, orange, blue and black plugs that you need, but USB sound cards or DACs don't seem to have them!
From what I've read, they seem to be the exact same thing. They both take the audio from your PC via USB, process it and convert it from digital to analogue and output it to the connected headphones. And yet, when you look at manufacturer's websites, they list USB sound cards and DACs under separate categories! So what's the difference?
In terms of usage, I simply want something that I can plug my headphones and speakers into that avoids any processing of the audio happening inside the PC. For headphones, that seems to be the domain of a DAC or USB sound card (still not sure of the difference!) but for 5.1 speakers, where are you suppose to plug them in? A PCI-e sound card gives you the green, pink, orange, blue and black plugs that you need, but USB sound cards or DACs don't seem to have them!
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