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Word on the street is:

Posted by Presto (A) on April 17, 2007 at 18:53:21

In Reply to: Which is better? Toslink or USB converter to Digital S/PDIF? posted by creativepart on April 17, 2007 at 13:13:33:

1) USB -> SPDIF (to DAC) SPDIF -> I2S (in DAC) is not that great. (Apparently not always an advantage over SPDIF -> DAC.)

2)USB -> I2S (in USB DAC) supposed to be good.

3)AES/EBU -> DAC with soundcard slaved to DAC wordclock is supposed to be good too.

Gordon Rankin (a manufacturer and contributor to this forum) is really hip on #2, and so are the folks who have tried his products.

Others are using USB DACs but honestly can't likely tell you whether or not their USB device is converting to SPDIF first, then I2S.

Others yet are using USB-> SPDIF converters and running SPDIF into a DAC. Some are happy with this method. Others are ecstatic. Some think it's a waste of time.

Option #3 is expensive as hell to do properly (and a little more complex), but I think it might be the answer if you need 4,6 or 8 channels to do DSP crossovers for multiway systems. (I have never heard of anyone doing multichannel apps with multiple USB DACs and I am not going to be the first to try it... especially with USB DACs costing $1000 a pop. For $3000 I can get a Lynx AES16 with 4 AES/EBU outs and run digital (synchrounous) into an Aurora8 24/192 8 channel DAC. And this way I know all DACs have the same clock source, and I can even slave my digital output card to the DAC clock as well. Sounds dreamy.

I dunno. I don't have the time or money to try all these methods.
Plus I am doing multichannel stuff and will probably just end up going with #3. I've been doing "poor boy" audio solutions for digital audio for far too long now. It's time to put the mid-fi cards and HT receiver (for 6 channel amplification - triamp) in the closet and see what real time convolution and DSP crossovers with phase correction can REALLY do! :^D

For two channel into passive speakers, (if that was what I was doing) I would insist on a USB -> I2S direct DAC into some kind of wonderful 2-channel 300B SET tube amp, or your favorite 300 pound SS amp with all them pretty silver fins and blue lights. And stuff.

Sorry to sound like a shill for Gordon, but his logic that going USB ->I2S direct and skipping the conversion to and from SPDIF is better is just way too logical for me to ignore.

Cheers,
Presto

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