Different digital sound formats have different qualities and specs, but they all store music as bits of data. Virtually all music played through a digital device, including the tracks you stream on music services like Spotify and Amazon Music, needs to be converted to analog in order to be heard through a pair of headphones or speakers. It's through this process that you're actually able to listen to audio stored in a digital file format, like MP3, WAV, or FLAC. By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from InsiderĪs well as other partner offers and accept ourĪ digital-to-analog converter, or DAC, takes your digital audio content and transforms it into analog so that your sound system can amplify and play it.
