Ozzie: mines not supposed to come until early June. Sigh.
Cal3713 and French_fried : that is my exact dilemma. There are some serious contenders in the outboard USB to SPDIF converter category. 2 of the top choices are the Berkeley Alpha USB and the Empirical Audio Off Ramp 5. There are many others for sure, but in have narrowed my selection to these 2 if I went that route.
It does make sense that a dedicated external USB to SPDIF converter would do a better job then a built in board inside a DAC; just like an external phono stage is better then a phono card in a pre-amp. Not only will it isolate clocks, but it guarantees a more robust power supply and (theoretically) more accurate clocking. Mof course, many of the newer DAC's re clock their incoming signal so that part may be moot.
I am seriously considering the very well reviewed Concert Fidelity DAC-040 for red book only sources coming from my Core Audio mod'd Mac Mini. But the CF has no USB in so I would NEED one of the USB to spdif converters.
For now, I have decided to stick with a DAC that comes with a USB input. Once I chose one, I will definitely try adding a seperate USB to spdif converter to see if the sound gets better. Then I can try the CF unit as well.
Cal3713 and French_fried : that is my exact dilemma. There are some serious contenders in the outboard USB to SPDIF converter category. 2 of the top choices are the Berkeley Alpha USB and the Empirical Audio Off Ramp 5. There are many others for sure, but in have narrowed my selection to these 2 if I went that route.
It does make sense that a dedicated external USB to SPDIF converter would do a better job then a built in board inside a DAC; just like an external phono stage is better then a phono card in a pre-amp. Not only will it isolate clocks, but it guarantees a more robust power supply and (theoretically) more accurate clocking. Mof course, many of the newer DAC's re clock their incoming signal so that part may be moot.
I am seriously considering the very well reviewed Concert Fidelity DAC-040 for red book only sources coming from my Core Audio mod'd Mac Mini. But the CF has no USB in so I would NEED one of the USB to spdif converters.
For now, I have decided to stick with a DAC that comes with a USB input. Once I chose one, I will definitely try adding a seperate USB to spdif converter to see if the sound gets better. Then I can try the CF unit as well.