In an era where everything is digital, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that your headphones should be, too. When shopping between headphones that connect via a traditional, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and those that use a USB connection, you might wonder whether the more information-dense USB standard is capable of delivering higher quality sound than the 3.5mm standard, which is downright prehistoric by technological standards.

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However, things aren’t so clear cut. There are good reasons why the 3.5mm plug (or the 1/4″, for that matter) hasn’t gone the way of the dodo, and why it remains the gold standard for music and other professional audio work. At the same time, that doesn’t mean you need to rule out a USB pair of headphones, as they may serve you better for some purposes. But to really understand the difference between these two connection types, we need to dissect a few of the basic concepts at the core of digital audio. Here’s the difference between USB and 3.5mm headphones, so that you can make the most informed choice for yourself.

The key to understanding the difference between USB and 3.5mm audio is signal chain, which refers to the path an audio signal takes from the output device to your ears. Audio coming from a computer or mobile device must be transformed from a digital to an analog signal somewhere in the chain before reaching your ears. That means you’ll need a digital audio converter (DAC) somewhere in the chain to convert the digital audio into an analog signal.

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USB is a digital connection. That means, in a pair of headphones with a USB connection, the DAC is almost certainly somewhere in the headphones themselves. Meanwhile, a pair of headphones with a 3.5mm connection relies on a DAC downstream from it. Usually, this is either your audio card if using a computer, or a dongle, if using the USB-C port on your phone (though some phones also have built-in DACs).

Assuming for the sake of illustration that you’re comparing two high-end headphones with one USB and one 3.5mm, the sound quality you can expect from them will depend on whether the built-in DAC on the USB headphones is better than the DAC the 3.5mm headphones are pulling a signal from. But let’s return to reality: the vast majority of high end headphones are 3.5mm headphones, while USB headphones tend to be rather cheap in quality. So, if you want to stop reading here, the answer is that you’re better off with a 3.5mm pair of headphones in most cases. However, we’ve only just entered the rabbit hole, so there’s a lot more to explore for those who want to dig deeper.

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The next layer we should dig into as we explore the nuances of 3.5mm headphones vs. USB models regards audio cards and audio interfaces. As mentioned above, you must convert digital audio signals to analog in order to hear sound from an audio playback device. If you’re using the built-in 3.5mm headphone jack on your computer or smartphone, you’re relying on the onboard audio card to do that job. However, because most people are not professional audio engineers, most audio cards (especially on low-end devices) do the job quick and dirty. They’re not bad per se but they will not live up to the expectations of a musician or HiFi enthusiast.

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That’s where audio interfaces come in. These are standalone devices that connect to the computer via USB and sit on your desk. Your computer will treat them as an audio output, and they will convert the digital audio into analog. You can then plug speakers/monitors and headphones into them. Audio interfaces tend to be far better than a built-in audio card not only because they are built for a singular purpose of handling lossless audio, but because they do so in a separate box away from your computer’s internal circuitry, which can add interference to the audio signal.

There are a few things to consider when choosing an audio interface. In a sense, even the cheap, $10 dongle that converts your phone’s USB-C port into a 3.5mm jack is an audio interface. However, when most people in the know think of an audio interface, they picture something like the immensely popular Scarlett 2i2 from Focusrite. If you only plan to use it for music playback and games, you could even get away with the much cheaper Komplete Audio 1.

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Ultimately, you can probably find great pairs of either analog or USB headphones. However, whereas high quality 3.5mm headphones abound it is much harder to find a high quality pair of USB headphones. Because 3.5mm headphones are the gold standard, with an analog connection that simply works without any drivers or other software, USB headphones are usually only made for specialized applications like hands-free calling or gaming. These applications don’t require high quality audio, so they generally don’t support it. On the positive side, that means USB headsets tend to include microphones, and also tend to be very cheap. However, some extremely high-end headphones may come with their own DAC and amplifier that connect via USB. One example of that would be the Beyerdynamic T1 headphones, which retail for about $1,000.

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Again, this doesn’t mean that USB headphones are inherently worse than 3.5mm, but rather that they tend to be. However, all the difference will be in audio quality. The headphones will perform the base function of playing back audio just the same over USB as 3.5mm. The question is how much money you want to spend, and how much you care about audio fidelity. Even without an audio interface, you can expect 3.5mm headphones to perform admirably even when connected to a 3.5mm headphone jack, or to a USB port with a cheap dongle. But if you care about achieving the highest quality of sound, you should get one of the best over-ear headphones and connect them to an accompanying audio interface.