Do I need a Soundcard or DAC (or are these the same thing)?

[admin_exported]

External Sound Card or DAC?

I have a Macbook Pro that I for listening to mp3's and some light meddling with in Ableton (mostly working with samples). I run Ableton 8 under windows 7 which I have connected via the headphone jack to a decent hifi amp and speakers.

My goal is 2 fold.

1) To get better sound quality when listening to mp3's
2) To get better sound quality out of Ableton

I’m unsure if i need to get an external sound card (like a M-Audio Fast Track Pro)to do this or if an external DAC (like a Beresford Caiman DAC) would be better.

Could someone outline the pro and cons of going down one of these routes? am I missing the boat are both these the same thing?

 

[professorhat]

A soundcard and DAC are different - a soundcard is basically a device designed to output (and also input) audio signals from a computer. A DAC on the other hand is purely a device for converting digital signals to analogue signals (Digital to Analogue Converter). As such, a soundcard will always have a DAC built into it to enable this conversion. The advantage of using an external DAC is you can improve this part of the process by buying a higher quality DAC then the one built into your soundcard (or CD player or any other digital device which has a digital output).

In your case, since you are trying to improve the sound from two different devices, my immediate thought is to get an external DAC, since you could connect both the Macbook Pro and the PC into this i.e. one device for both. This assumes though that your PC has a digital output - many do by doubling the headphone output as a digital output as well (your Macbook Pro almost certainly does this) but this needs to be checked first.

However, there is also the school of thought that the best way to improve sound from a PC source is to get the audio signals away from the noise present within the laptop which affects the sound and an external soundcard is an easy way to do this. Assuming you can get one which could be used with both the Macbook Pro and PC therefore (such as the M-Audio you mentioned), and you don't mind swapping between them as you listen (or even if you have the budget to get two), this may well be the best route to improving the sound, especially from the PC. Buying an external soundcard with both analogue and digital outputs also allows you to further improve the sound by looking at external DACs later on when you have a bit more money to hand.

 

[Anonymous]

would a DAC improve the sound quality of the audio rendering in ableton? im just wondering in terms of processing midi and rendering tracks if a DAC is even involved or if the sound card is responsible for this part?

 

[professorhat]

The DAC won't be involved in this I wouldn't have thought (other than converting the resulting sound to play via your speakers) so yes, given you're producing music, this makes even more sense to go the external soundcard route.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Can you recomend a good sound card with decent built in DAC for around the £200 mark?

 

[professorhat]

Gonna pass over to others at this point as I don't have any experience with external soundcards.