Newbie question re: USB quality

Loftarasa, I do believe Peachtree's implementation of USB is good, and I agree that any attempts to improve upon it via an outboard converter will be expensive - I think I'd be chasing miniscule improvements for big dollars, and I've got better things to do with the money. I do appreciate everyone's input - it's all a learning experience.

Bcgator - I have heard the Peachtree Grand on both the USB and spdif inputs and found the spdif involving and emotional - two qualities I could not get with USB input. We used my gateway PC with the ESI card and then the USB output. My buddy also bought over the Ayre USB/Spdif converter which was much better than the USB out of my PC but still thin and uninvolving. I would love to have you try the ESI sound card. My issues with USB are well documented on these forums. Nice to see the new Ethernet to spdif converters coming out. USB's shortcomings are becoming more and more obvious. Within 2 more years, USB audio will be pretty much gone. The USB bus is just too prone to garbage.

I trust SPDIF 100% based on its designed purpose and usage and having used many such connections with various devices over the years.

I also trust Ethernet data conenctions, wired or wireless, 100% as well. IT handles moving audio file data just as reliably as any data type, so it is a safe bet as a means of getting data off the noisy general purpose computer, when needed, and to a remote network streaming receiver. From there, how things sound is largely a function of teh DAC and other common home audio success factors, not the digital source of the data.

I am not at that level with USB yet. Results to date have been more mixed and I cannot necessarily isolate the reason/cause. So the book is still out with USB for me. I am sure there are ways to do it well, but not sure yet how to identify that reliably. Asynchronous USB is said to be key. IS that it? Gotta be more to it than that.

Yeah Cerrot, something just isn't adding up. You bought a $4500 Integrated amp, listened to it through SPDIF and found it involving and emotional, and then you returned it? I assume this to be the case, because you no longer have it, and I'm doubting you carted your Gateway PC to a dealer. If it belonged to your friend, and he still had it, obviously something was working right for him - why didn't you judge it in his system, rather than cart all that equipment to your place in order to judge it on your computer, a component that can swing the results wildly in either direction if not setup properly? It just isn't making sense to me.

Maybe your issues with USB are an issue with either your computer, or the way you're outputting the audio from the computer. Even forgiving the inane hyperbole in saying that you can get better sound from a string than from USB, your anecdotal evidence just doesn't add up for me. And even if I accepted all of it, that you bought a $4500 integrated amp, found the sound involving and emotional through the input of your choice, yet returned it because you didn't like the input that you would never have used anyway, there are too many variables to account for why you're getting "garbage" and other people get great sound. You want to write off all USB implementations, and I'm not ready to go there yet.

Maybe asynch is it, Mapman. I don't know why music streamed from Jriver on my computer via USB sounds better than the exact same song played from CD into the same exact DAC via spdif, but it does. And in exchanging emails with Peachtree, they don't seem surprised that the USB performance is so good - I presume it's the reason they went to so much trouble to update units out in the field with the X-1 update that included the XMOS chip and asynch USB implementation. Of course, I wish I'd conducted this test before my original post regarding these connections - from everything I'd read, I thought I was missing the boat in connecting through USB, but my ears now tell me otherwise. And Loftarasa may be right, as well. If I dropped another $600 on an Audiophileo (if I'm looking at the right one), maybe the pendulum swings back in the other direction.