@Whoareyou the sound card is an outdated concept that died when motherboard manufacturers started baking somewhat decent audio right into the board:
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You'll have a very hard time convincing others to call these sound cards:
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Not least because they're pure output devices, whereas sound cards did and still do provide both in and outputs.
But DAC's are usually better than soundcards ever were.
Souncards, they often had buggy or non functioning drivers as Windows got new releases which impacted the audience to avoid them as much as possible as their gear suddenly stopped working as the software was not updated to work on the new systems. Or buggy software was never fixed to actually make the cards functional without glaring faults. Features removed and other issues was normal.
Though if they marketed these DAC's to the same crowd it would open up a larger audience of users to come back to better Audio gear on the PC markets. These USB attached devices usually don't have the same issues as the old add-in-card variants had of old.
And they are overall of much better quality all around than the cards were if you ever bought a after market one.
Because of old issues most just gave up and preferred to stick to their onboard audio solutions and forgot something better was ever around.
If they marketed these directly as soundcard replacements instead of onboard audio or add-in-cards with much better performance & less issues, you could widen the usershare of people having the gear in the first place.
I never even considered a DAC until I broke my onboard Audio on my motherboard, I needed a new solution. None of the internal variants were "good" or without issues. Also add in the feature most modern motherboards have no room to add in a card in your system as they have done away with extra PCI/PCIE connections to slot in your add-in-card.
Just by chance I found myself looking at these DAC's. Was all around a better solution than any soundcard could ever be. The other choice was to go the HDMI AVR route.
Only issue was these were all only 2-channel output.
Finally a multi-channel option came around with the Okto dac8
& then now with this Topping DM7.
The DM7 would have been a perfect solution ages ago! Only thing is the balanced outputs are kinda limiting in what gear you can hook up to it. Though preferred in the price range this product is at though.
I was looking for a multi-channel soundcard for ages but they always were of old designs or not sold any more. Drivers being a main issue as well.
This DM7 is in my list of things to get if I get around to getting a set of balanced powered speakers to pair this device with.
My old unbalanced 5.1 system will have to retire if I get the DM7 for something better.
The PC crowd wants multi-channel audio solutions if only the products ever existed & worked as advertised!
It's finally here!
Driverless(windows) multi-channel solution with top-line performance!
If you have the cash for this entry level this device is sold at people will consider it if they only knew it exists & actually will work as a soundcard replacement device.
I will seriouisly consider getting one when the time is right to get the new speaker system to pair it with.