I’m going to be honest with you, ignore basically everyone who tells you to get expensive amplifiers or DAC. You really truly don’t need them. There are, however, a few benefits to getting a amplifier and DAC which I will list below for you.

If set up correctly, the sound you get out of them is isolated from the other noisy parts of your PC, which is ideal because you will get less distortion overall. This distortion can come in many different shapes, and sizes, and in some cases this distortion can be terribly bad if you have a slow PC. There is something called DPC, latency, which, if too high can lead to some pretty annoying, pops, and cracks that constantly play in your audio stream, But usually it Hass to be pretty bad for something like that to happen. If you have even a remotely, decent gaming, PC, or a remotely decent laptop, you’ll be perfectly fine. I can imagine you would probably see this happening on some cheap Best Buy, Toshiba laptops, or something along those lines. In other cases, you experience, crackling and pops, it may be an indication that your amplifier, or dock is not properly set up.

Which leads me to my next point, getting an external amplifier, and DAC allows you to properly set up your listening experience, compared to using an onboard system. I see this topic debated online from time to time, so take this with a grain of salt or do your own research to see what conclusion you come to, But from what I’ve heard reducing the volume in the Windows, operating system, and other operating systems reduces the bit depth leading to a hissing or audible noise floor. I think back to when you were in high school when you used some cheap iambs and you heard that annoying hissing sound while there was no sound playing, and that’s what that is. This is a debated topic though, because some people online do mention that windows actually outputs sound at 32 bit internally, so this may not be an issue anymore and may have been a problem with the older windows, operating systems, but generally the consensus you see online is that you should get an amplifier or DAC and if you do, you can raise your windows volume to 100% and do finer adjustments with your amplifier itself. I’ve actually messaged amplifier and the AC manufacturers and this is exactly what they tell you to do every time to get the most out of the hardware is to raise your windows volume to 100% and reduce the amplifier volume.

Another important detail to keep in mind is that on windows, there are a couple of settings you want to change in order to get the best experience out of your external amplifier and DAC to give you the biggest difference. You’ll want to write click your volume control button on the bottom right of your taskbar and had into the sound control panel. After entering this menu, off to the right hand side, you’ll see another hyperlink button you can click that says sound control panel again. Click this, heading to playback devices, right click your DAC, head into properties, make sure that the enhancements are all turned off by going into the enhancements tab, and toggling that button that says disable, all enhancements, Head to your levels, tab, and max that volume slider out and reduce the volume on your amplifier, and then head into the advanced tab and set your sampling rate and a bit depth to 44.1 kHz with 16 bit. This is because if you have it set to 48 kHz or higher, most content online is 44.1, so you’ll be getting some nasty recompression going on. This also seems to be the case with services like Spotify.

So, in conclusion, expensive amplifiers, and DAC do absolutely nothing, but in my opinion, you should absolutely purchase an external amplifier or DAC even if it’s a cheap one. A nice cheap hybrid amplifier, and the AC will give you the biggest bang for your buck, and the most noticeable difference compared to getting a super expensive amplifier, or DAC. If you already have one, and it has the features that that you need, there’s absolutely no point in getting one more expensive. it is important to know, however, that if your headphones don’t get loud enough with the power that your amplifier outputs, then you should get an amplifier or a new pair of headphones for sure. But as far as sound quality goes, it’s absolute bogus. Get yourself a nice, decent amplifier, and the AC or even a highbred and set it up how I told you in this comment and ignore it after that. But again, I do encourage you to look this stuff up yourself as well to fact, check some of it because I have seen it debated online in the past. All I know is that I’ve spoken with amplifier and the AC manufacturers about this as well, and they themselves also admit that some of it is bogus, but as far as setting up your amplifier and the AC the comments I listed here above, seem to be the general consensus of what you should do to get the best sound out of your system. You’ll avoid crackling and hissing, you’ll have a pretty, damn good noise floor, and it will give you the peace of mind, knowing that you’re getting the best of the best as far as sound quality goes.

Let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense and I’ll be happy to explain further. Also, sorry for any typing errors. I’m currently using Siri to dictate this on my phone.