Yes, no difference. It converts current into voltage in every case.
I was really surprised about the change in tone and refinement.
And the direct coupling to the output cap is also very rewarding. Very easy, just two solder joints in your case, 5 minutes of work.
As Bill Allan stated somewhere in this thread, the dac is very simple, so every part has a big influence on the result. And he is right.
But I don't think it has to be expensive, for electrolytics there are very good industrial alternatives nowadays which are similar or better than BG. Think of Panasonic FM, Rubycon ZL or ZLH for analog part, Oscon SP or SEP for digital part of the dac.
I didn't spend more than 20 bucks to make my jaw drop
And the Mundorf silver gold stays in the drawer...
I think one of the biggest misunderstandings in Hifi is, that good sound cost good money.
My CD player with tubes and all technical mumbo Jumbo got rave reviews and set me back about 1500$. And the Valab blows it away...
BTW I don't see such a bad USB input in the Valab, but when the input was still working
I had a slight switching noise in the speakers. But I think this is more due to poor USB drivers in the computer and high frequency hash from the CPU.
Sound was a little better with running the netbook through battery.
The dddac has old receiver from Crystal, the Valab the dir9001with much less jitter.
But I did not dive so deeply into this stuff, so I can't figure whats better.
In my system this dac plays with no grain of harshness, be it USB or Coax.
Turntable isn't spinning since the Valab arrived....
But still no reply from Valab...