Undertow,
Yes and No. In theory Yes. In practice sometimes NO - as the bursts required for USB operation may feedback through the power supply to make the DAC inside the USB device more jittery than an equivalent AES/EBU or Toslink setup. Unfortunately activities close to the DAC itself can affect jitter. It is the same problem in a CD transport...control signals to the servo motor may end up inducing jitter in the DAC clock.
Remember that Toslink and Digital coax have been around longer than USB and therefore DAC designers have had a bit more time to work out all the possible jitter issues and good ways to attenuate them. In that sense a USB communications protocol running off the same power supply might be an added "unknown".
Yes and No. In theory Yes. In practice sometimes NO - as the bursts required for USB operation may feedback through the power supply to make the DAC inside the USB device more jittery than an equivalent AES/EBU or Toslink setup. Unfortunately activities close to the DAC itself can affect jitter. It is the same problem in a CD transport...control signals to the servo motor may end up inducing jitter in the DAC clock.
Remember that Toslink and Digital coax have been around longer than USB and therefore DAC designers have had a bit more time to work out all the possible jitter issues and good ways to attenuate them. In that sense a USB communications protocol running off the same power supply might be an added "unknown".