There's people that have done some independent testing of audio outputs. The quality varies widely so paying a lot is one way to make sure you have good outputs

There's people that have done some independent testing of audio outputs. The quality varies widely so paying a lot is one way to make sure you have good outputs. A lot of phones have notoriously weak/bad audio jacks. Some built in motherboard audio outputs suck as well. However, in general, any dedicated audio card, even the cheapest soundblaster will have audio outputs just as good as extremely expensive audiophile stuff. Maybe not as much power output, but that only matters with high ohm headphones. Ditto with any Apple products, they've been known to have extremely high quality Cirrus Logic audio chips for a long time