erland wrote: > One thing I still don't completely understand is how important the USB > really is if we: > 1. Have a DAC that generally produce a better analogue out than > everything else than high-end external DAC's > 2. Have a S/PDIF that's significantly better than the Squeezebox Touch > > Are all new external high-end DAC's USB only (without support for > S/PDIF) or why is USB that important if we have an excellent S/PDIF and > an excellent analogue out ?
One other thing to have in mind, is that while 192k is a practical limit for SPDIF, (typically less for optical), there are several USB UAC2 implementations now that support 384k. Whilst I'm not advocating big numbers for the sake of it, going forward I think we are going to see a lot more activity with DXD and DSD. Tunnelling DSD64 requires 176k4 PCM sample rate, DSD128 - 352k8. I'm not an advocate of asynch USB for the sake of it, but always having been an advocate of clocking from the DAC side, asynch USB is important. John already stated that he didn't want to go for the two box solution, and working asynch USB UAC2 out sidesteps most of the downsides of a two box solution. And whether I agree with it or not, the usual subjects (and by that I mean the mainstream audio press), have already held the wake for SPDIF, so going forward I think the high-end is going to migrate exclusively to asynch USB. That has started already. To my mind, as far as future proffing goes, having a very good USB out is more important than the on-board DAC. And to JS, if you are going to put an optical out on GEN2, please make sure you use a part that is capable of 192k, rather than the more usual 96k, even if it pushes the cost up a few bucks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JackOfAll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3069 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
