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In Reply to: Re: Connect DAC direct via USB or Optical? posted by Jim F. on December 30, 2006 at 07:29:32:
-----**If** you believe a straight USB DAC is inherently more immune to jitter than a DAC with an S/PDIF interface...-----Jim F. - one of the engineers around here can correct me if I'm wrong, but just because a DAC has a USB interface does not necessarily mean it is a more direct interface than connecting with S/PDIF. They still take the USB connection and convert the signal before it goes to the DAC. And AFAIK the PS Audio Link III converts the USB input to S/PDIF before it goes to the DAC. What you want is a DAC (like from Wavelength or Empirical Audio) that convert the USB input to I2S (the more native interface of DACs - and supposedly with less jitter issues).
Follow Ups:
I think Scott Nixon's USB DAC utilizes I2S also.gotta admit.....after playing around with some different configurations.....EAC + Foobar + wave files on a separate hard drive > directly in to a good USB DAC sounds pretty darned good. (better than I want to believe ;> )
> AFAIK the PS Audio Link III converts the USB input to
> S/PDIF before it goes to the DAC.Why in the world would they convert to S/PDIF once
the signal is **inside** the box? That would be an
awful kludge, surprising from the likes of PS Audio.
> Where did you hear that?OK, I found a similar claim on the Web.
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?topic=29841.msg265447(Presumably the poster meant 'the new Bel Canto DAC 3'
rather than 'DAC 2').
This is a quote from Paul McGowan from the PS Audio website forum (not their AA forum):-----"The audio from your computer is sent via the usb audio standard to our dac. It does have buffering and error correction. We then convert it to S/PDIF to avoid the internal dac that is in the usb chip. At this point, the signal is treated just like any other input to the dac."-----
> This is a quote from Paul McGowan. . .Well, at least the Link III has that SRC4192 chip just
before the DAC, so there's probably no significant sonic
effect to going through S/PDIF. (OTOH, some folks are
allergic to ASRCs, just on principle. ;-> )
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