Traum
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2012
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Admittedly, USB is quirky at times, also prone to ground loop/hum issues (unlike optical S/PDIF). Other than that, there shouldn't be any noticeable audio quality differences between the (correctly implemented) DAC inputs.
According to both my ears (I only have the gen 1 USB on my Bifrost regular) and from Jason himself, SPDIF sounds better than USB on the Bifrost -- or at least, this is true with the gen 1 USB interface.
Here is a review article about the Bifrost (regular) from Nov 2012:
http://www.audiostream.com/content/schiit-audio-bifrost-dac
Specifically,
From the Schiit website's Bifrost FAQ page:
It’s a good-sounding, reliable, solid implementation of USB. But that’s like saying, “Well, its a very nice meal, given that the chef could only work with McDonald’s hamburgers.”
Wait. Are you saying USB is crap?
We’re saying we put a ton of time into our USB implementation, but, to our ears, USB still doesn’t quite offer the performance of SPDIF. And we can even get into shades of gray on SPDIF too: consider Mike Moffat’s AT&T ST-optical interfaces and Sumo’s Axiom/Theorem transport and D/A, which had a separate low-jitter master clock connection from the transport.
This section of the FAQ seems to have been taken out, so perhaps the gen 2 USB does sound a little better than the gen 1. Still, if your source already has SPDIF, why not use it and save the $100 - $150?