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USB or optical output from an internal sound card?

post #1 of 7
11/2/11 at 11:43am
Thread Starter 

I am thinking about how to connect my NFB-10SE DAC to my computer. I have a Creative Titanium HD soundcard but I don't know which connection is better. USB directly from  my motherboard or optical from the sound card?

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post #2 of 7
11/2/11 at 12:35pm

Optical from your sound card could let you use Creative's DSPs still, if they have some processing similar to Dolby's that is still relevant in games. I haven't used Titanium HD personally, but I doubt there would be any hardware restrictions in regards to a processed signal sent via S/PDIF through toslink. USB would send the signal as is.

 

Also, I haven't researched your DAC. Is your USB restricted to 24/96 without drivers? Making more assumptions, I think Toslink would be too. But that has never amounted to anything discernible for me. 

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post #3 of 7
11/2/11 at 1:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tetsuma View Post

Optical from your sound card could let you use Creative's DSPs still, if they have some processing similar to Dolby's that is still relevant in games. I haven't used Titanium HD personally, but I doubt there would be any hardware restrictions in regards to a processed signal sent via S/PDIF through toslink. USB would send the signal as is.

 

Also, I haven't researched your DAC. Is your USB restricted to 24/96 without drivers? Making more assumptions, I think Toslink would be too. But that has never amounted to anything discernible for me. 



Thanks. I don't know whether there are any DSPs since that sound card is not designed for games.

 

My USB supports 24/96 while coaxial/optical supports 24/192. http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB-10.1/NFB10.1EN.htm

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post #4 of 7
11/4/11 at 4:59am
The optical is better because it support higher bitrate and sound willbe more fuller.
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post #5 of 7
11/4/11 at 7:07pm
Thread Starter 

I think optical is better now. Just now I heard a lot of noise and when I restart my computer the noise has gone. So I think USB output is unstable. Moreover for optical I can use my soundcard's ASIO digital output which is definitely better.

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post #6 of 7
11/4/11 at 10:31pm

Not that 24/192 even matters at all, but USB can do 24/192 with the proper implementation.  It's also definitely going to sound better than optical in my experience.  I wouldn't want a random sound card in my signal path.  

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post #7 of 7
11/4/11 at 10:53pm
Thread Starter 

But my experience is when I use USB output sometimes it has a loud sibilant sound and when I restart the system it returns to normal. This never happens when I use ASIO output from my sound card. Maybe this is a special case but it indeed shows USB output will be affected by the system or other things.
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by scootermafia View Post

Not that 24/192 even matters at all, but USB can do 24/192 with the proper implementation.  It's also definitely going to sound better than optical in my experience.  I wouldn't want a random sound card in my signal path.  



 

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