1y ago

looking for advice for USB DAC

Hi linuxhardware gang

i've been having some issue on my headphone jack, and the sound quality has never been great. this is on a small mini pc running arch linux.

So what i'm looking for is a device i can plug into my usb (preferably usb-C) and Linux will use it to play audio. i plan to plug that device into my amp, which i can use headphone jack or those white and red plugs for.

I hope USB DAC is the proper term, i'm kind of struggling to find products that do this.

anyway, does anyone have experience with products like this on linux? i don't want to have to hack together the software side. even just a brand recommendation will help.

10 comments

Am personally using a shiit magni modi stack on endeavour os.
So i think any sort of dac should do, as long as its just a "stupid" dac. So just usb in sound out without any other fancy features that might require a driver.
- I'm also running a schiit stack and would recommend it.
  
  thank you both, i'll see if i can get a schiit modi shipped to me for reasonable price. it seems that is what i'm looking for.
I have Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD and it just works. Plug'n'play at least for Ubuntu, Mint and Raspbian for both input and output.
I use my behringer with active speakers, but it can run headphones just fine without anything else. But as you're planning to connect that into an amplifier a full DAC is a bit overkill, since a simple USB sound card is well enough to output on line levels. Cheap ones just tend to have quite poor sound quality, I've had few of them and worst ones pass trough noise when there's any activity on USB. One Creative USB sound card I used (I think it's still at some drawer gathering dust) had really low input/output levels and there was nothing I could do for it, it might have worked better with windows drivers, but I didn't even try.
But majority of DACs and USB sound cards will just work.
- Thanks for the info. seeing as the Schiit modi isn't available in the store that ships to my country, i might go for something like that. what do you think of the cheaper UM2? it looks like it'll do what i need it to, but will the quality be audibly worse? i do have a set of old speakers that sound great to my ears (with a good source)
  
  I suppose it has same internals than bigger model and should work just as well. I just needed two inputs for the project I tinkered with and once I ditched the project that got left over and now it's connected more or less permanently to my workstation.
I'm currently in a similar situation to yours; this is what I've found so far:
Audiophiles recommend either the Schiit Modi or the Topping D10s. I've never heard of those brands before but they seem to be trustworthy, given the endorsements they receive.
There are many USB audio interfaces for musicians. Their main selling point is usually the input channels instead of the headphone output, but if it's good enough for musicians momitoring themselves while singing or playing an instrument, why wouldn't it be for me?
This is one of the cheapest I've found: https://www.thomann.de/intl/m_audio_m_track_solo.htm
I think if a device works with macOS you can assume it will also work with Linux.
By the way:
USB DAC is indeed the correct term.
The "white and red plugs" are called RCA connectors.
Look to FIIO. They have million models for all budgets. I'm using E10K for last 5? years. Best 100$ I ever spent. I would add physical volume knob on it is extremely convenient. Love it.
I use a Volt 276 (audio interface so it's not exactly the same as a DAC) but I've have no problems at all. Never had to install drivers nor fiddle with it to make it work

10 comments