Lucile Nokes

If you’ve ever thought to complain to one of your audiophile friends about your headphones sounding worse on your setup than on theirs, chances are they’d urge you to purchase an external DAC in a most well-meaning manner.

The thing is, there are plenty of DACs out there – some can easily fit into a pocket while others can be quite heftier. And the price varies just as much! Most importantly, as far as you know, none of your non-audiophile friends are using them. So naturally, the question arises:

Is an external DAC necessary for your headphones?

Let’s find out!

First things first, let’s see what a DAC even is.

DAC is an acronym for digital-to-analog converter.

Since all the songs – or audio files of any kind, for that matter – stored on your PC or smartphone are digital (strings of ones and zeros), they need to be converted into analog signals before the driver can interpret them and turn them into sounds that we can hear.

That’s precisely what DACs do – they act as audio signal translators, letting us understand what the source file is trying to tell us.

So, if you were to try and play music without a DAC, the audio source would still be sending out a digital signal, but naturally, you wouldn’t be able to hear it.

In that sense, a DAC is not only necessary but essential in order to listen to any kind of digital music.

As you’ve already picked up by now, we can hear the music we play on our smartphones and PCs even without purchasing a DAC. This is because these devices feature their own built-in DACs. The motherboard of your PC or laptop has one, and your smartphone’s got one as well.

But not all DACs are made equal. So the crux of the issue becomes this:

What can an external DAC offer that an inbuilt one cannot?

The answer is quite a bit, actually!

High-quality audio is not the focus of every device out there.

Many smartphones, especially budget ones, are content with DACs that are just good enough for you to carry out a phone call without any hiccups. In fact, they need such mediocre DACs to keep the price down.

And that’s where external DACs come in – they can get rid of the unwanted artifacts, distortion, and so on caused by subpar built-in DACs.

On the other hand, some built-in DACs can be rather powerful. For example, there are certain high-end motherboards out there that feature DACs so good that an upgrade to an external DAC just wouldn’t be worth the money.

So, if you don’t have any issues with your audio in the first place, chances are you don’t need an external DAC.

At the very least, check to see if your built-in solution is already exceptional so as not to waste money.

However, one reason you may want a DAC, even if you’re content with the audio your smartphone or laptop can generally produce, is if you’re suffering from issues caused by impedance.

Impedance is an often-overlooked headphone spec that’s kind of difficult to explain succinctly.

We’ve had to write a full guide about it just to cover the basics, so read that if you want the full rundown.

In essence, impedance shows you what your headphones are like at resisting the signal from the audio source. This is measured in ohms, with the range for headphones spanning between 8 and 600 ohms.

The lower the impedance, the less resistance the headphones offer, which means you don’t need as strong a signal to use the headphones properly.

Consequently, the higher the charge, the more resistance it offers, which means you need a more powerful signal to adequately use the headphones.

Why is this a problem?

Well, battery-powered devices like smartphones simply cannot generate a strong enough signal to properly feed high-impedance headphones. As a result, if you were to plug a pair of high-impedance headphones into your smartphone, you’d be treated to subpar audio that’s not only quiet but also inconsistent at different frequencies. The same goes for many PCs and laptops.

So, if, for whatever reason, you’ve got a pair of high-impedance headphones that you want to pair with a device that just can’t handle them, you can use an external DAC to fix the issue.

In truth, it’s not the DAC that’s feeding more power into the headphones – that job goes to the amplifier. Most DACs come with their own amps, so that’s how that works out.

As a quick reference, when we say high-impedance headphones, we mean anything with an impedance of over 100 ohms. There are some motherboards out there that can handle even 600 ohms, but unless you’ve got a high-end motherboard, don’t hold out hope for this.

On the other hand, low-impedance devices span the range between 8 and 26 ohms. Anything in this range can be properly used by a battery-powered device since even the battery can produce a strong enough signal to overcome this low resistance.

Then there’s the middle area that’s considered neither low nor high-impedance. Headphones in this range are often called DJ headphones, and whether or not you can run them without an external DAC should be approached on a case-by-case basis.

In most cases, you’d likely need an external DAC for headphones with an impedance over 50, but this depends on your audio source – some battery-powered devices can handle these mid-range impedance ratings better than others.

There’s a lot more to impedance than this, but this should be enough to understand the role it plays in the need for external DACs.

In any case, external DACs do offer an improvement in sound quality; it’s just that the degree to which they help can vary.

For example, external DACs used to be the go-to solution for eliminating jittering and hissing, but nowadays, even the cheapest built-in DACs don’t suffer from these issues.

DACs are also known to positively affect the soundstage of headphones. This makes the music feel more engaging and lifelike. Gamers could also use this to benefit from better surround sound.

For example, the Sennheiser GSX1000 DAC not only improves the audio quality over a regular old internal DAC, but it’s also able to even exceed some true surround sound headphones.

There are other small quality-of-life improvements that external DACs bring to the table, but it’s paramount to understand that the DAC, external or otherwise, can’t do all the heavy lifting by itself.

The DAC is just one variable in the equations towards higher quality audio, but it doesn’t offer much if you neglect the other variables. And, for the most part, the other variables boil down to the headphones and the audio format.

We’ve got plenty of great headphones and earbuds reviews here – from wired models to wireless and even true wireless ones – so check them out if you’re in need of a great new pair of headphones or earbuds.

In any case, we’d argue that good headphones and an okay integrated DAC offer a better listening experience than a great DAC with subpar headphones.

However, not even the best headphones and the best DAC will help if you simply listen to lossy audio formats.

There are many lossless formats out there, like FLAC, for example, that are capable of reproducing music exactly as it was recorded. But lossy formats like MP3 simply aren’t as high-quality and can introduce all kinds of distortion problems.

If MP3 is a-okay to you – which is perfectly fine, as not everyone has the same kinds of expectations from their music – then you’re likely not the kind of person who needs an external DAC except in the case of impedance mismatch.

Alternatively, even if you want to ensure the best possible listening experience, you should first make sure to use lossless audio files and procure a proper headset before worrying about an external DAC.

It’s the last step you should make in your quest for awesome audio.

In conclusion: Is an external DAC necessary for your headphones?

In most cases, the answer is no.