Measurement Question - How Good a DAC Necessary

[whoareyou]

I currently use a USB mic together with exasound DAC w/ASIO driver and get decent results with AL's clock drift correction. It works OK, but I was thinking about a different device for measurements (my setup is multichannel) so that the input/outputs are all using same clock.

I think everyone agrees the measurement microphone needs to be calibrated and of decent quality.

So, how important is the quality of the i/o device used when measuring? For example, if your PC has the correct input / outputs on the built-in soundcard, can one just use the analog input / outputs of a PC to complete measurements?.

So how good does the device used for i/o need to be when taking measurements?

 

[juicehifi]

Glitch-free streaming is the number one priority. Apart from that: Embedded some cards are borderline. Some are plenty good enough, some of those in laptops are insufficient. So anything above that will do. But if you get consistent results with your current measurements …. with regards to timing …. I doubt that there anything to gain here.

If you have random glitches, it will appear as unexplainable timing differences between tweeters or between full range speakers….