http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/Cosecant.html

...or anything like this?

i'd go for it were it not for the rather hefty price tag for something limited to computer sources ($3500).

A bit more on the implementation specifics would be nice, but overall this type of transport/DAC seperation overcomes many of the problems with S/PDIF. Should be many more systems of this type coming out in the near future, and I look forward to this. Still, there will be arguments about the best sounding USB/IEEE 1394 cable and which format is more nuanced or whatever

Isn't this what Headroom's Bitheads do? They include a headphone amplifier, but still, it's a USB-based DAC..

Or am I missing something?

Yeah, that $3500 price tag is what made me post this topic instead of buying one to check it out myself.

The description of the Headroom Bithead doesn't say anything more than this:
"At the heart of every AirHead is a quad op-amp that does the buffering, cross-feed delay, mixing, and output preamp functions."

They don't really go into details about what's being done to the sound. So far every dac I've seen that is designed without any resampling boasts it in their product description. Since my source is my computer, the Cosecant would be ideal for me, if not for the astronomical price tag. Hopefully someone will take this apart and put together a nice DIY kit.

Quote:



Unless I'm very much mistaken (and how could I be given usb storage, etc), usb has error correction, therefore any cable thats not so bad as to take the total throughput (with error correction) above usb spec will deliver the same bits to your card/DAC. And if there were communication problems with the host, I expect it would show up as skipping, not degredation.