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Does a DAC completely bypass the computer soundcard

I have a HP Envy laptop that compresses badly the signal out of the headphones socket. I want to transfer my digital iTunes and wav files to R2R but what comes out of the laptop is simply not acceptable. I plan to get a DAC to bypass the HP soundcard and software to solve the problem. My question is, will it solve this compression problem? thanks.
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Showing 1 response by mike_in_nc

mike_in_nc
1,169 posts
 
If you take USB output from the laptop, you will be bypassing the computer’s sound card completely. If you are using a reasonable audio player program on the laptop, what comes out the USB port (and into your DAC) should be bit-perfect.

You mentioned iTunes; I have not used it in many years, but it has had a bad reputation, so I'm not sure or not whether it fits what I mean by "reasonable audio player program."
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