DAC
Where the money usually goes, and when it should.
Where the money usually goes. The component everybody obsesses over, and the one that matters least until the boxes around it are sorted. Then it matters a great deal.
Do you need it? Eventually, and this is the right place in the order to think about it. But if the mains and the supplies are untouched, that money buys more upstream.
Look at the inputs you will really use. If everything arrives over USB, a converter with four other sockets is money spent on sockets. Check what feeds it, too: a converter running off the mains through a switching adapter is not being heard at its best, and that is the cheaper fix. Ask us what a given converter is sensitive to before you commit.
Getting a USB DAC to sound right is mostly settings, and the settings are not where you would guess. We wrote both guides, step by step, with a screenshot of every panel: macOS and Windows.
In plain language: DAC
