[buz]

Here's something I have seen rarely discussed - most people seem to denigrate USB audio. In my view, USB (as broken a protocol it might be) is a much saner way to do audio than SPDIF (and anyhow, most laptops don't have SPDIF; they might have HDMI but that's painful in its own right): sending clock data across a wire is just not very smart (yeah I know many USB audio are not asynchronous either but that's just laziness on part of the designer).
 
So which USB DAC will sound best under the requirement of fulfilling the USB Audio spec (so no weird proprietary drivers, I want to be able to use it from any USB audio device capable device, not just on cruft originating from a certain big vendor)?

 

[Currawong]

Very few require special drivers, so just about USB DAC is to spec as far as I know.

 

[buz]

Musiland for one has weird drivers from my understanding?

 

[regal]

Quote:

 
So which USB DAC will sound best under the requirement of fulfilling the USB Audio spec (so no weird proprietary drivers, I want to be able to use it from any USB audio device capable device, not just on cruft originating from a certain big vendor)?

You are really limiting yourself with this requirement.   To the point that I think no proprietary driver = USB feed will pretty much be the same.  You could argue that a DAC that goes USB-I2S-DAC is better than one that goes USB-Receiver-I2S-DAC but IME there is little difference.   So you want to look for a DAC with good jitter reduction and of course more imprtant good DAC chips and a good analog stage.   My recommendation would be to read the AudioGD DAC19DSP thread.  I have the non DSP version and it is very nice.  Benchmark 1 has an advantage of accepting 24/96 USB input without drivers but and this is a big but to my ears it is not a good sounding DAC.
 
If you want the DAC with the best USB implementation you need to look at the Ayre QB-9,  but it needs a driver.
 
 
The future of USB audio will be drivers required as there is a huge benefit.  I don't understand why you want to avoid drivers as even USB dac's that don't require drivers usually sound better with the USB-ASIO driver (especially pre Win7.)

 

[buz]

As for why I want to avoid them, proprietary drivers are generally of lousy quality (and not Linux compatible) and I honestly don't see why you would need a driver to send a simple bitstream to a what is essence a rather dumb device. The main reason why ASIO helps on windows is because Windows Audio is a broken design (and it helps to ensure bitperfect streaming by circumventing it), not because it is inherently superior.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

The main reason why ASIO helps on windows is because Windows Audio is a broken design (and it helps to ensure bitperfect streaming by circumventing it), not because it is inherently superior.

Only on Windows XP and before. WASAPI works fine on Vista and W7.

 

[regal]

You're a M$ avoider, I can respect that.   Actually the newer asynchrous USB's aren't dumb devices because they are timing the data (not as easy as you think to do right).    But I completely understand why you want to avoid buggy proprietary drivers.  I waited 6 months and even posted a poll asking about driver stability before I ordered the hiface as system stability is of utmost important to me.   Unfortunately the future of computer transports is proprietary drivers.   
 
I wish I could help you more but I have yet to see a driverless usb input DAC where the reviewer said it sounded better running USB than SPDIF.  So I recommend a separate driverless USB-SPDIF transport the TerraLinX1 ( I have one and it is nice.)  If I were you I would spend my money where it counts  :  PCM1704 (one of the least affected by Jitter and a good discrete output stage.   You also might want to look at the Twisted Pair Buffalo,  I have no experience with it but they claim good jitter reduction.   I would pair that one with the Pass D1 analog stage  (thread and soon group buy on DIYAudio.)   
 
But the Ref1 by AudiGD would be tough to beat and probably your safest bet,  paired with a USB-SPDIF TerraLinX X1.   Or for less money the AudioGD DAC19 again paired with the TerralinX1.    Both of these have great DAC's and analog stages which is really 95% of the SQ factor with a DAC IMO.
 
Quote:

As for why I want to avoid them, proprietary drivers are generally of lousy quality (and not Linux compatible) and I honestly don't see why you would need a driver to send a simple bitstream to a what is essence a rather dumb device. The main reason why ASIO helps on windows is because Windows Audio is a broken design (and it helps to ensure bitperfect streaming by circumventing it), not because it is inherently superior.

 

[buz]

Even if you were to reclock the USB audio, it's still a comparably simple device. At that point you basically need a small databuffer and a good internal reference clock. Or you could go all out and actually put a simple CPU in there. Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I fail to see any reason why all of that could not be entirely transparent to the USB host.

 

[regal]

You aren't reclocking it,  the usb transport becomes the controller the computer becomes the dumb device (slave),  M$ doesn't like that hence the elaborate drivers,  I'm sure with linus the drivers would be much simplier to implement.
 
Quote:

Even if you were to reclock the USB audio, it's still a comparably simple device. At that point you basically need a small databuffer and a good internal reference clock. Or you could go all out and actually put a simple CPU in there. Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I fail to see any reason why all of that could not be entirely transparent to the USB host.e

 

[buz]

Wavelength got it working with the Windows drivers though - whether or not the Windows drivers actually conform to the spec is another discussion, obviously.

 

[techenvy]

Quote:

Here's something I have seen rarely discussed - most people seem to denigrate USB audio. In my view, USB (as broken a protocol it might be) is a much saner way to do audio than SPDIF (and anyhow, most laptops don't have SPDIF; they might have HDMI but that's painful in its own right): sending clock data across a wire is just not very smart (yeah I know many USB audio are not asynchronous either but that's just laziness on part of the designer).
 
So which USB DAC will sound best under the requirement of fulfilling the USB Audio spec (so no weird proprietary drivers, I want to be able to use it from any USB audio device capable device, not just on cruft originating from a certain big vendor)?

im with you on this one,  installing drivers isnt very appealing..   id like to hear more about what you think of hdmi audio,,   currently i am running hdmi out of laptop into my lg lcd and then toslink output to my dac,,   to my ears it sounds pretty darn good and much better than any usb dac i have tried,   but i will soon try some better 96/24 usb dac against it but still think the hdmi will sound better, but i always wonder if the LCD is compromising the signal,
 
how does hdmi converted to toslink hold sway,  again to my ears it sounds pretty good,, im not sure the dac chip the Lg lcd uses,,,, but wouldnt a signal converted from hdmi to toslink/spdif  bypass the LCD dac for a  much cleaner signal  than say a usb to spdif converter?? 
 
i wish their was a converter that would convert hdmi to spdif and then have a passthru for hdmi to your lcd, that would be perfect.
 
great thread by the way..