[Fickle-Friend]

Hello all,

How do you think the new USB 3.0 connection will fare against the current 2.0 standard? I'm looking at some high end USB DACs and I don't want to purchase and then find out that everyone is jumping on the 3.0 bandwagon.

Question is, should I hold off or is the 3.0 USB still a pipeline dream? I know some laptops are now beginning to appear with the 3.0 connection.

 

[pytter]

Why do you need USB3.0? Lossless or even high-def music doesn't need that kind of bandwidth. This is why most DAC producers haven't adopted firewire - USB is perfectly fine - unless of course we are talking about professional DACS for music production with multiple channels in and out in which case the extra bandwidth does make sense.

 

[krmathis]

I seriously doubt it will make a difference.
For one the bitrate transfers to an external DAC does not even stress USB 1.1, let alone 2.0. In addition it seems like most USB receivers in external DACs use USB 1.1.

Also talked about just a couple of weeks back: USB 3.0 - Advantageous to audio?

 

[lxxl]

You really shouldn't worry about USB3.0, and like the other said, audio don't usually exceed USB1. And USB3.0 is backwards compatible.

 

[Hybrys]

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/us...-audio-468009/

 

[matanoosh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lxxl /img/forum/go_quote.gif You really shouldn't worry about USB3.0, and like the other said, audio don't usually exceed USB1. And USB3.0 is backwards compatible.

A question, if I may, guys -

I hear everywhere that USB Dacs don't support more than 96k/24bit. In other words, a 192/24 bit would be downsampleed to 96/24, due to bandwidth issues.
Doesn't that mean that a higher speed USB might allow for 192khz/24bit hi-rez audio transfer?

 

[UNHchabo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matanoosh /img/forum/go_quote.gif A question, if I may, guys - I hear everywhere that USB Dacs don't support more than 96k/24bit. In other words, a 192/24 bit would be downsampleed to 96/24, due to bandwidth issues. Doesn't that mean that a higher speed USB might allow for 192khz/24bit hi-rez audio transfer?

It still has more to do with the design of the DAC than limitations of the USB 2.0 standard. 24/192 PCM uses bandwidth of about 4.6 megabits per second, about a third of the theoretical bandwidth of USB 1.1, and less than a tenth of the theoretical bandwidth of USB 2.0. Even in practice, most USB 2.0 controllers are capable of sustaining at least 3MB/s, or 24 megabits per second.

Long story short: USB isn't the reason that USB DACs don't support 24/192.

 

[skriefal]

I believe you're off by a factor of 10X here. Most USB 2.0 controllers are capable of sustaining 30MB/sec (240Mbit/sec). This is half of the theoretical peak USB 2.0 bandwidth of 480Mbit/sec.

 

[UNHchabo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skriefal /img/forum/go_quote.gif I believe you're off by a factor of 10X here. Most USB 2.0 controllers are capable of sustaining 30MB/sec (240Mbit/sec). This is half of the theoretical peak USB 2.0 bandwidth of 480Mbit/sec.

I was mainly going off of this:
Universal Serial Bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The actual throughput currently (2006)[update] of USB 2.0 high bandwidth attained with real-world devices is about two thirds of the maximum theoretical bulk data transfer rate of 53.248 MiB/s. Typical high bandwidth USB devices operate at lower data rates, often about 3 MiB/s overall, sometimes up to 10–20 MiB/s."

Today USB drives may be able to get speeds around 30MB/s, but among the sum total of all USB 2.0 devices that have been made, that isn't the norm. I have a 2GB USB drive that was considered pretty fast when it was made in 2007, and I can read from it at about 11MB/s.

 

[Roseval]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matanoosh /img/forum/go_quote.gif A question, if I may, guys - I hear everywhere that USB Dacs don't support more than 96k/24bit. In other words, a 192/24 bit would be downsampleed to 96/24, due to bandwidth issues. Doesn't that mean that a higher speed USB might allow for 192khz/24bit hi-rez audio transfer?

This has nothing to do with USB 2 or DAC’s
All major OS (Linux, OSX, WIN) have native mode USB audio drivers.
These drivers are compliant with the USB audio 1 spec.
This spec allows for 24/96 max.
If you want more (176/192) you have to write your own driver at the PC side.
This is a rather expensive job so most companies don’t do that.
Some do like Musiland
The USB audio 2 spec’s (early 2009) supports 172/192 but are not yet implemented in any of the OS mentioned above.
More details can be found here: USB

 

[groovizintheheart]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fickle-Friend /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello all, How do you think the new USB 3.0 connection will fare against the current 2.0 standard? I'm looking at some high end USB DACs and I don't want to purchase and then find out that everyone is jumping on the 3.0 bandwagon. Question is, should I hold off or is the 3.0 USB still a pipeline dream? I know some laptops are now beginning to appear with the 3.0 connection.

Definitely hold off until data integrity verification standards have been well established by these guys: USB.org - Welcome As far as I know Agilent is just putting out oscilloscopes that will have USB 3.0 compliance testing features on them in the market this month.

Certified cables might be rolling in around end of fiscal year 2010.

 

[spookygonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by groovizintheheart /img/forum/go_quote.gif Certified cables might be rolling in around end of fiscal year 2010.

I naturally expect some of them to be stupendously expensive (Unobtainium?)

 

[aristos_achaion]

I'd expect that DACs will eventually move to USB 3.0 just because everybody likes big numbers and new specifications, but, like everybody's been saying, it won't do anything for performance, it'll just raise costs of adopting DACs. The limitations on USB DAC bitrates are more on the side of the DAC chip and the drivers, not the limitations of the transfer.

But still, given bitrates--is it really practical to stress out about super-24/96? I mean, the vast majority of music you'll encounter will still be 16/48, since most people don't know how to configure their OS's mixing to enable higher bit- & sampling rates anyhow.

 

[Currawong]

I expect DACs wont move, as A: It's pointless, and B: it would require someone to design new chips, which, being that it's pointless, would be expensive. It might work for high-end studio gear though, as many 24/192 channels over USB would be more easily feasible.

 

[PabloDiner]

Quote:

I expect DACs wont move, as A: It's pointless, and B: it would require someone to design new chips, which, being that it's pointless, would be expensive. It might work for high-end studio gear though, as many 24/192 channels over USB would be more easily feasible.

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