> It looks like these start at $250? I'd expect them to work well.
Price inflated, like the price of nearly everything. I paid mine 150 EUR back in the days (still not cheap but not either the 4 digits high-end audiophile stuff).
The thing is: you want thing to work fine from Linux's side and in my experience USB Audio on Linux just works.
I'm sure there are other brands/models at reasonable price points.
It looks like these start at $250? I'd expect them to work well. I'm more wary of this pricepoint:
> Apple sells $10 USB-C-to-3.5mmjack DAC
I've gotten a lot less EM noise with builtin soundcards than cheap USB DACs, but YMMV.