[i_love_hina]

So right now I'm working with Laptop -> random $20 USB-optical converter -> Zero DAC via optical -> DT880's.
 
It looks very likely I'll be adding some tubes in the future, but before I proceed, I wanted to know if my USB-to-optical is bottlenecking my rig?  I don't know much about how this all works so I'm not sure if there is any potential quality lost with a crappy converter, or if it's all the same.

 

[JRG1990]

Yea that cheap converter would be a bottleneck and may cause jitter, you need something like a proper usb dac/soundcard with optical out, you could try these http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA222.aspx , http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html .

 

[xnor]

Quote:

Yea that cheap converter would be a bottleneck and may cause jitter, you need something like a proper usb dac/soundcard with optical out, you could try these http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA222.aspx , http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html .

It's very questionable if these devices would decrease jitter and if these tiny amounts of jitter are actually audible..
 

[size=medium] Quote:

It looks very likely I'll be adding some tubes in the future, but before I proceed, I wanted to know if my USB-to-optical is bottlenecking my rig?

[/size]

[size=medium]  [/size]
[size=medium] Tubes will bottleneck sound quality more than any random USB-to-optical converter. 

[/size]
​

 

[JRG1990]

Quote:

Quote:

Yea that cheap converter would be a bottleneck and may cause jitter, you need something like a proper usb dac/soundcard with optical out, you could try these http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA222.aspx , http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html .

It's very questionable if these devices would decrease jitter and if these tiny amounts of jitter are actually audible..
 

[size=medium] Quote:

It looks very likely I'll be adding some tubes in the future, but before I proceed, I wanted to know if my USB-to-optical is bottlenecking my rig?

[/size]

[size=medium]  [/size]
[size=medium] Tubes will bottleneck sound quality more than any random USB-to-optical converter. 

[/size]
​

 
The devices i listed will be better made, better quality products than the $20 converter . LoL the tubes would be a bottleneck for me aswell compared to a $20 converter aswell.