[C38368]

They don't care what they're plugged into, with respect to sound quality, do they?
That is to say, if I've got a song ripped to FLAC and I play it on a "nice" computer (you know, the well-thought-out, quality component sort), the sound that comes out of the DAC (and whatever's downstream from it) is going to be the same as something played out of a five-year-old laptop, right? Provided nothing else changes, that is...

 

[Ayreonaut]

The quality of the USB should be the same. Make sure to use asio4all to get an unaltered (by windows) digital signal.

 

[C38368]

Sweet, thanks

Now if I could only settle on a nice work setup...

 

[K2Grey]

From a purely theoretical standpoint, would the computer's power supply make a difference?

 

[Ayreonaut]

Its a debated and complex issue.

"What did we learn from this excursion inside the head of a digital engineer? Simply that by the time certain process descriptions have been simplified enough to where the vast majority of us audiophiles can focus on firm statements -- such as "the USB interface is essentially jitter-free" -- pernicious details that kept engineers up during the night have conveniently fallen by the wayside."

and

"What does all this technical background data suggests? Simply that present-day implementations of USB DACs have earned measured equality with their traditional S/PDIF brethren. They now mandate consideration on even footing. Though USB is still predominantly computer-based, that doesn't make it an inferior format."


It doesn't keep ME up nights.

And my MicroStack sounds great out of my workstation.

 

[MASantos]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ayreonaut The quality of the USB should be the same. Make sure to use asio4all to get an unaltered (by windows) digital signal.

What are the advantages of using asio4all??