Newbie question re: USB quality

Kijanki,
I just noticed you own a benchmark dac1. Is that the HDR? If not it doesn't have USB. How do you even make a comparison? Not only that it was made in 2005. Some things have change in the last close to 10yrs. You preach how your way is better the USB yet you have no USB. You joke about my system that you had never seen nor heard. WOW! Keep posting.

Pkoegz, I've never criticized your system or "brought it up to criticize your knowledge". I don't even know your system. I was joking at idea of keeping everything together like in 70s. Yes, I was questioning your understanding of the jitter and timing - crucial to D/A process. I've never question that USB can be done right but rather tried to show possible benefits of timing removal. It can be done inside or outside of the DAC box but outside converter is more flexible, in my opinion.

Last Sunday, I did some initial critical listening for the first time using USB out from my Gateway laptop to mhdt Constantine DAC (no asynch USB TTBOMK) in my bigger listening room with my biggest/best speakers, the OHM F5 series 3.

I can compare to what I normally hear using network connection to Squeezebox Touch to same DAC via Toslink.

I went in with low expectations, essentially how close could sound quality be with little hope for anything better.

This seemed to hold true. I was pleasantly surprised that sound quality was as good as it was, certainly sound in many ways, nothing inherently bad per-se, but nothing special to distinguish what I heard either. Source was cloud based Amazon Prime Music.

All in all, not bad. I still need to do some more apples/apples comparisons with specific tracks I know well though.

No doubt for me to-date that software and source material used is a big factor for sound quality, even with basic USB. AMazon prime music and PLEX sound pretty good. Mediamonkey has been very unimpressive so far.

It should be no surprise that sound quality of various software programs used to play music can vary greatly. That's an important thing to keep in mind when comparing two different technical approaches to digital music playback. BEyond that, different programs might be configured different ways leading to even more varied results.

Others have pointed out that one thing with computer audio is the wide range of results possible. I would agree. Highly standardized approaches that are designed specifically for music, like SPDIF and Toslink, definitely help level the playing fields.

SO far, I am optimistic that with the right software and source material, even non synchronous USB using a stock USB cable can deliver very satisfying, if not the ultimate, results. THat's definitely not the case with just any particular piece of software used.

Mapman makes a very good point here. There are a LOT of variables involved that can make USB results vary all over the map:

1) ripping software
2) playback software
3) format (wav, AIFF, FLAC etc.)
4) computer and power supply
5) USB cable
6) USB port on the computer used
7) are there other USB devices connected?
8) does the USB interface use the power in the cable?
9) software settings: caching/memory playback, buffer size, ripping with and without Accurate Rip etc..
10) background apps running on the computer

Any of these can cause an non-optimum result.

If you want to minimize all of these, just get an Antipodes server and stream from the USB output. Everything is optimized. I don't sell them, but have used them at shows. Sound amazing.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Try the Antipodes Servers they are correctly implemented USB out and they sound fantastic.