2. pc-audio
  3. 1088427969

Audiophile USB to PCM

I have an excellent upsampler and dac (dCS Purcell/Delius) and am looking for the very best USB to PCM conversion. So far, I've tried SlimDevices Squeezebox, and Xitel Pro Hi-Fi link.

Both are very good, but I was wondering if there are any other options I should be considering. Both the Sutherland USB Preamp and the Wavelength USB Dac convert to analog. I'd like something of similar quality that stops short of the digital to analog conversion so that I can let the dCS gear do that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

harry
128x128hbrandt
rsbeck
887 posts
 
Why do you want to convert to PCM before your DAC?
hbrandt's avatar
hbrandt OP
272 posts
 
I want to use my audiophile grade DAC. It accepts a 16/44.1 signal....which I thought was PCM. Doesn't a CD player put out PCM. I thought I needed to convert the USB signal to PCM for it to be able to be accepted by the DAC. Is this incorrect?
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,216 posts
 
Hbrandt, the music files stored on your hard drive are a PCM data stream which is can then be transmitted via the USB protocol to an external device. You simply want a device that connects to your computer with an USB cable and connects to your D/A with a Toslink, S/DIF or AES/EBU cable. It's a very minor point, but I believe it's incorrect to refer to the USB connection as converting the PCM data stream.
edesilva
768 posts
 
Harry, you are trying to do what I do, and the PCM conversion is necessary. I'm using an Edirol UA-1D right now, which has a USB dongle on one end and a connector for coax PCM out on the other. Nothing else, no DAC. Sounds good for background music running into my Theta (I'm using mp3s compressed with -alt preset extreme, not uncompressed AIFF/WAV/AAC). I believe the Edirol is limited to 16/44.1. Since USB is an asynch protocol, I believe there should be no USB induced jitter in such a setup. Not sure what RSBeck's set up was with the M-Audio, but I previously used a Sonica from M-Audio to do USB to PCM conversion (the version I had was not equipped with a DAC) and it sounded fine.
hbrandt's avatar
hbrandt OP
272 posts
 
Onhwy61:
Technically, I believe you are correct. The files on the hard drive are PCM, but they must be converted to a stream that can be read by a dac. I believe that there is a header that is stripped from the stream...and then, yes...it is simply a pcm bitstream. It is not a conversion per se...and I shouldn't have referred to it as such.

Bottom line is that I want to get tunes from my laptop to my sound system. I'll leave the specific terminology to the computer gurus.

harry
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