Best Digital Input from PC to DAC

Be careful of those "low-jitter" claims. Even Stereophile made measurements on Squeezebox and Sonos - they were both low according to them (under 500psec), and the Sonos was only slightly worse, and yet the jitter is obvious on both and a LOT worse on the Sonos.

Steve N.

Cerrot - you have not heard every USB converter or DAC, so please reserve judgement. I will put my USB converter up against your Firewire anytime. I'm confident that I would win the shootout.

I realize that you believe your system sounds great etc., but trust me, there are lots of systems out there are are superior. Everyone is at a different level here. It is all relative.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Thanks for the grate feedback.
I'm using the Emm Labs DAC 2 which has numerous input choices, 1 of which is USB. I find the results to vary significantly from my stand alone single box player. Music files sound Slightly distorted and compressed. I know this DAC is capable of very good audio output.

If you are using XP, I would recommend unmapping the device. This will make the USB interface sound a bit better. USB interface quality varies a lot from one product to another, so it may stil not be better than the S/PDIF input. Here is how to unmap:

Go to Control Panel - System Hardware - Device Manager - Sound Video and Game Controllers – Empirical 1.1 - Right-Click and select Properties - Audio Devices – Empirical 1.1 - Properties - Set "Do not use audio features" and set "Do not map through this Device"

You will need to reboot and then if you change it back to mapped, then you must re-boot.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio