USB SQ, what can one expect


Have been trying out the USB connection on a Resolution Audio Cantata. The wire I've been using is generic (nothing fancy)and I've been using a Dell laptop using JRiver just to try this out. My problem is that my CD's played on the transport built into the Cantata just sound fantastic, three dimensional, everything and the same CD's ripped to the computer don't hold a candle to it played over the USB. I've also tried some high rez downloads. Is this to be expected or is the problem that I need to optimize the USB playback more. Thanks for any guidance that can be offered.
redcarerra
As with each audio type component, USB can be expected to be: poor-to-good-to-absolute-state-of-the-art depending upon the component designer's: expertise, capabilities, priorities, and voicing. Anything more specific is a generalization that doesn't befit many of the knowledgeable posters in this forum who through many decades of trial and error, fully recognize that there is absolutely no component type, nor one way to achieve the goal of very highly resolved audio playback!

There are far too many combinations and permutations and hence variables, to make anything but closed minded, belief/faith driven sweeping statements about equipment types as a whole and their overall negative or positive merits etc.....

I've been surprised, blind-sided, and simply blown away by far too many equipment types to be simplistically misguided by previously held theorems! Keep an open mind as much as you can....the rewards are always worth the effort! In fact, you might learn something new and find something that's better than you could have ever imagined or believed!
USB can sound as good as vinyl:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1398132150&openflup&1775&4#1775

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=95464
.msg960567#msg960567

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Willie, I have been using the ESI Juli@ for a while now. I have had a few; off the mobo (Intel, forget the chipset); I've tried RME, Universal Audio, Maudio, the usual asus and creative nonsense, pretty much all I could get my hands on. Firewire was much better than USB but I have found the ESI Juii@ ($150!) is the best for my ears/system - and ironically - the cheapest.
USB can sound as good as vinyl? I think I just peed a little. Steve, do you even have a turntable? Unplug that USB phonoplayer and see if you can borrow a VPI Traveler. I will lend you a grado gold and you will blow away your synchro mess. Hear that? Its a guitar string!