Crack DAC?

[Baskevyl]

This is some real newbie stuff incoming, so thank you in advance for bearing with it.

As I understand from an another older topic, you don't need a DAC to use your desktop motherboard's internal audio as your audio source for the Crack 1.1 OTL. With that said, do you need a DAC if you want to connect your Crack to your GPU as its audio source (GTX 1080 if it's relevant)?

[Paul Birkeland]

It could get a little complicated to pull the audio out of the HDMI output of your video card.  I would suggest an inexpensive sound card or DAC, bypassing the audio drivers that come with the GTX-1080 (if it has any).

[Baskevyl]

After a decent deal of searching, I've come to a few conclusions. Yes, plugging it into the line-in jack would be the simplest way to go about it. I've also considered an inexpensive DAC just for more sounds quality improvements (since my motherboard's a P8Z68-V PRO GEN3, getting old and 'meh' compared to newer tech). But as to options for getting audio from the GPU (after lots of searching, the GTX-1080 does have digital audio output):

Getting a 2-end HDMI (the 1080 only has HDMI and DP ports) connected from the 1080 to a DAC with HDMI input, which in turn connects to the analogs on the Crack. Sounds reasonable? Won't work?

[ALL212]

Audioquest Dragonfly Black is about $100.  USB to the PC and 1/8" jack coming out.  I've put a 1/8" to rca cable on that and it works quite well.  My out at the time was... $130?  And you can use a cheaper cable than the one I had.

[Karl5150]

What Paul and Aaron said. Different flavors available, Schitt Modi, etc.