Sending music to DAC wireless vs wired

Rbstehno wrote:
"the best external dacs do not use usb and the reviews of the dacs with usb have not been favorable."

Not true at all. The review of the Benchmark DAC-1 USB, the Wavelength Cosecant and the Empirical Audio Spoiler USB DAC's were definitely favorable. There was a minor technical issue with the DAC-1 USB which was resolved later. The reviewers in the reviews liked the USB connections and found them comparable or better than the S/PDIF coaxial connections.

The thing that is spoiling the performance of many USB DAC's is the use of the TI PCM270X devices. These are essentially plug-and-play and very inexpensive, so many manufacturers have used these in their first USB DAC's. Unfortunatly, this chip does not sound good, even with the heroic attampts at low-jitter clocks and good power supplies etc. It is also limited to 16/44.1. Therefore, there were a series of reviews of these DAC's that were unfavorable, at least towards the USB inputs. But this does not represent the state of ALL USB DAC's.

None of the Benchmark DAC-1 USB, the Wavelength DAC's or the Empirical Audio Spoiler use the PCM270X chips. Instead, they use the TAS1020 from TI, which is designed by an entirely different group at TI and sounds wonderful, particularly with the right USB firmware inside it.

Please go read these reviews and discover how good USB DAC's can be:

Stereophile DAC-1 USB:
http://stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/108bench/

Empirical Audio Spoiler:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0708/empirical_spoiler_usb_dac.htm

Wavelength Cosecant (before the synch USB upgrade):
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/1006/wavelength_audio_cosecant.htm

audioengr: the best dacs do not use usb. i still checked and your dcs,esoteric, nagra, manley, the older audio research, levinson, classe (which i favor over the current benchmark) do not use usb. the new audio research dac is coming out with usb so we will have to wait and see how it compares. also, if i wanted to use an external clock generator, i would be out of luck since none of these that i know of can accept USB.
i'm not saying that you can't use a USB connection, but if you do, you are limiting yourself on what you can use with it. if you like the quality of the benchmark DAC with its usb connection, then by all means, go for it. if you want to get a better dac or get an older better dac, then you can't use USB.

I used a AirPort Express for a while. It sound pretty darn good but it would stop working when our Microwave Oven was in use. Other than that it was great.

Rbstehno - you obviously did not read the reviews that I cited. The Spoiler is not only the best USB DAC, but the best DAC that the reviewer has auditioned. He has heard a LOT of high-end DAC's too, you name it.

Steve N.

steve - i did read your 2 articles but i stopped after reading this in 1 of the articles:

"Turning to the Benchmark's sound via its USB connection, I auditioned it exclusively using a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones. Playing the 24-bit master files for my Stereophile recordings, everything seemed fine. But with iTunes running on my PowerBook as the source of 16-bit music files, the sound seemed a little grainier than I was expecting from my experience using S/PDIF and AES/EBU sources."

also, when comparing the benchmark using a digital connection, the reviewer liked the bel canto unit a little better. since you brought up this article, here is a review of the bel canto dac 3 that has a usb connection from 6 moons:

"Comparing USB to S/PDIF, the former sounded marginally constricted dynamically and showed far less separation between vocals and the backing instrumentation. The vocal was also placed further back in the mix and with less presence. In my system, the CD combo had greater dynamic contrast, a wider and deeper soundstage, again more flesh on the bone in terms of body and presence and more powerful and deeper bass. Dimensionality left to right, up and down and especially in the depth plane was more expansive on S/PDIF. Let's just say that the CD/DAC combo was superior in every aspect of music making by comparison."

again, this is not the only review of an external dac that includes a usb connection that a reviewer found the digital connections (non-usb) sound superior to the usb connection. here is the link if you want to see the review:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/bcddac3/dac3.html