Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

The Yggdrasil has a very good S/PDIF receiver, the AK4113. Same one I use. The results should be stellar with any good low-jitter source. Unfortunately, you are using very poor S/PDIF cables. See my cable jitter plots here:http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154425.0

@audioengr

Hi Steve. I did have a look at your web page with the measurements of different cables. Nice work on your part.

Note that the Belden 1694A I use with RCA is because the Oppo does not have a BNC output option. It does have optical, but I’m not using it (with the Oppo, I am using optical with the cable box).

Anyway, what is your opinion of using USB in the following configuration:
Gateway NV79 > Belkin e129760-c usb > Yggdrasil

Should USB produce better results than the Belden 1694A coax?

Should there be improvement if I were to switch the optical from my cable box to the Oppo? (note that according to Schiit, AES/EBU is best to the Yggy, followed by coax) I only have AES/EBU out from my Emotiva. I also recall reading from Georgehifi that some type of glass optical is best, which I’m also not using.

@gdhal 

That would be it “The other one”. Petty played Friend of the Devil live often also. Nearly every musician is a fan of Jerry Garcia - no denying tremendous talent.

@maplegrovemusic 

I have college degrees in engineering and physics. Don’t use any of it for work but I remember stuff and read up on audio regularly. I was also in AES Audio Engineering Society for many years. Time Series Analysis used in Geophysics is exactly the same mathematics as digital audio and I took courses just on that! I studied atmospheric physics in depth too but I better stop there... as nobody likes to hear rational discussion on that topic which has become a new cult religion.

@gdhal

Another advantage of upsampling redbook is on a ladder resistor network DAC or multi-bit DAC. Upsampling with Roon or another software should shift ghosts much higher in frequency - where the ghost frequencies can act a bit like random noise which can actually help linearize the DAC response. Of course the ghosts are ultimately filtered out by the final filter but not until after they have helped improve linearity.

The way to think of this is that the high frequencies force the DAC to use a wildly different bank of resistors on nearly every sample or at a minimum with much more variety of network choice than would be used if there was only low frequency CD redbook data - this means individual resistor network non-linearities are converted to uncorrelated noise which is orders of magnitude less audible!

Here is the full theory - in fact the author claims this is the primary benefit of upsampling!

http://www.mlssa.com/pdf/Upsampling-theory-rev-2.pdf

Shandorne can you explain then dark energy.

I bow down to all of you techies.  This thread takes so many new directions and all are amazing and informative to say the least.  I understand some of what you guys say, but I fully understand what my ears hear.  Thanks to all of you for this back and forth.  Best thread on any site pertaining to audio that I've ever read/been part of.  

Steve, great plots on the cables.  Thanks so much.  I was out of pocket a lot for the last few months of the year and missed your posts on the upgrade to SM.  I haven't been using mine as I have the Ayre QX5 and just connect everything direct. 

I'm getting The Memory Player with built in DAC and was wondering if I should use the SM to connect the TV to the internal DAC via BNC?  If so, I'd want the upgrade. I didn't realize that you had one.  I can call you later if it's better to take it off the board.  Just let me know. thanks. Pete