[AKChastain]

Can a USB dac do 24bit/192KHz ? Is there some limitation in USB spec that prevents this? I'm just noticing that many of the USB DACs that are not really expensive do not suppor this level of performance.

Thanks.

 

[HFat]

There's not such limitation that I know of, at least with USB2.
You would need custom drivers with Windows though, at least with 2K, XP and such.

Whether 24/192 performs any better than 16/44 for playback remains to be seen. Have you tried a blind test?
For recording, it makes more sense (although 24/96 should be more than enough).

 

[Wavelength]

AKChastain,

Both MAC and PC have been able to do 24/192 for sometime with or without driver support. It would require a USB 2.0 port as the data stream would require more than 9.2Mbps and USB 1.1 would not far well with a sustained rate like that.

There presently isn't any dedicated USB Audio controllers capable of that but I am sure they are working on them.

I agree with HFat about if 24/192 is better sounding. I have converted a ton of 24 bit users to 16 bit as they say it sounds better.

Remember retaining the fundamentals of the original recording as best as you can will result in the best sound. Up/oversampling etc tends to change the sound. Most people tend to like that sound for a while but always come back to basics.

Presently there is only conveluted ways of ripping higher sample rate recordings, some download places etc.

The rest is good old 44.1K/16 bit.

Thanks
Gordon