Wow, a tremendous amount of pontificating, bad advice, and stuff that doesn't apply, If you are going to give "advice" you could at least see what the equipment is capable of.
First of all, the DAC has USB, optical, and coax digital input while the streamer has optical and coax digital output. So all of you advocating Ethernet, USB, XLR, and/or I2S into the DAC are simply wasting his time since those aren't possible.
Also a lot of people spouting marketing hype like the Lampizator being the best USB solution possible. Of course that is what lampizator says,. I'm pretty sure the poster has no way to test any of their marketing hype but it certainly looks good on paper. All of the other DAC manufacturers with USB inputs have similar claims of superiority.
And then you get things like advice to use coax to XLR, which isn't even an option without an XLR input, but there is no way to properly implement it if there was
and
all inputs on the DAC support 24/192. I don't know if the Node outputs 192 but that is not a Toslink limitation.
so back to the original question
The Node doesn't have USB out (future firmware upgrade with no stated date of availability) so you have the choice of coax or toslink. The cables are inexpensive so I would try it both ways, but my educated guess is the OP will not be able to tell the difference. I certainly would not invest in expensive cables. This is a classic case of audiophile nervosa. The equipment is nice but no amount of cabling is going to make much if any difference.... make a choice... move on.
First of all, the DAC has USB, optical, and coax digital input while the streamer has optical and coax digital output. So all of you advocating Ethernet, USB, XLR, and/or I2S into the DAC are simply wasting his time since those aren't possible.
Also a lot of people spouting marketing hype like the Lampizator being the best USB solution possible. Of course that is what lampizator says,. I'm pretty sure the poster has no way to test any of their marketing hype but it certainly looks good on paper. All of the other DAC manufacturers with USB inputs have similar claims of superiority.
And then you get things like advice to use coax to XLR, which isn't even an option without an XLR input, but there is no way to properly implement it if there was
and
Actually the optical/toslink issue, unlike many sonic preference sin audio, is not a matter of opinion. It does not support high res
all inputs on the DAC support 24/192. I don't know if the Node outputs 192 but that is not a Toslink limitation.
so back to the original question
USB a to b, , Coax, or Optical ? what's the better one ? I have a Node 2I and a Denafrips ares 2 dac thats in transit ,
The Node doesn't have USB out (future firmware upgrade with no stated date of availability) so you have the choice of coax or toslink. The cables are inexpensive so I would try it both ways, but my educated guess is the OP will not be able to tell the difference. I certainly would not invest in expensive cables. This is a classic case of audiophile nervosa. The equipment is nice but no amount of cabling is going to make much if any difference.... make a choice... move on.
