Newbie question re: USB quality

>>a piece of string will sound better than USB!

And Fonzie just jumped a shark, 2 buses, a '73 Chevy Impala and a dozen llamas.

Do not know what Fonzie has to do with my trying to point out how poor the quality of the USB interface for audio is. Truth be told, the PC Audio industry is FINALLY progressing away from USB. USB was created for peripherialsice and printers, not music). It was embraced by the PC Audio crowd because users were unable to install a sound card and the drivers so they came up with the idiot proof way of USB! (way too much customer support required to install a sound card, drivers, adjust IRQ settings, etc). Problem is USB is horrible. If you spend the time to research it, you will see the power issue as well as the packet transmission issue, etc. It is the easiest interface but the one most subject to jitter and all the hideous effects of the inner workings of a computer. Get a $130 sound card and you will hear for yourself. Very easy to compare. Just dont use a Sound Blaster.

I don't know where Cerrot has been but welcome to the 21st Century.

USB-SPDIF devices have progressed tremendously. Do yourself a favour and try something like the Berkeley USB or the Wavelink HS or Steve's OffRamp 5 before you dismiss USB as an audio interface.

Guarantee it will beat most internal sound cards that are placed in close proximity to the EMI inside a PC.

There is always FireWire.

Regards,

@Metralla I have a Weiss INT202 and it is rather good but if you have the software that can enable Integer mode, I've found that the Wavelink HS outperforms it.