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Framed-Photo t1_j6mtyt5 wrote

Reply to comment by LandscapeChemical622 in I get it. I understand now. by LandscapeChemical622

If it's a USB headphone then that means the headphone has it's own DAC and amp built into it. That would also mean that you can't plug it into the amp you bought though so I'm assuming that's not what you have haha.

Regardless, for any of these devices you're gonna want to make sure any audio enhancements or spatial audio things are off. You can do that even on a USB headset.

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LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6mu919 wrote

Thats good to know. I'll have to have my roommate look into it with his USB headset to see if he can get any sort of changes. But I would also assume that a USB headset still won't have the "power" of an external DAC right?

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Framed-Photo t1_j6n2hc8 wrote

Any headphone that uses a headphone jack is analog in nature, and needs a separate digital to analog converter and an amp. That's what you bought as an external amp and DAC, and it's also what's built into your computer past the headphone jack. They're functionally both the same thing. If you were using just a vinyl player for example, you don't need a DAC at all as there's no digital signal to convert to analog. You'd just need the amplifier.

A headphone that uses USB as the interface has an internal amp and DAC. It's doing the work of your external amp and DAC, just inside the headphone, which allows you to plug it in with USB. It's still having to convert the digital signal to an analog one and amplify it, but it happens inside the headphone.

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