2. digital
  3. 160707-150037

A long harsh digital trip - final meter?

So the digital signal manages to find its way to a utility pole in front of your house. Then enjoys a coaxial sprint to a modem, and then head over to a modem, router and then into a Roon nucleus. Up to this point, a rugged unprotected harsh trip. And now this signal flows along a very refined ubs cable and arrives at a dac for final prep work before reaching a high end system. 
      So why does the final leg of the signal’s journey inside a usb cable seem to matter so much toward improving sound quality? What happens here to revive a digital signal that has traveled hundreds of disgusting dirty miles to reach the analogue chamber of rebirth? So I guess it’s possible to truly transform and correct a digital signal during a very short journey thru a usb cable?
emergingsoul
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
"So I guess it’s possible to truly transform and correct a digital signal during a very short journey thru a usb cable?"

No. 

It's possible to truly transform and destroy a digital signal during a very short journey through a USB cable. 

Many here do so with great flair and hubris.  :) 



audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,134 posts
 
Buy a Jcat ethernet Femto card for PC 
for a Substantially cleaner digital signal ,and isolation from 
the Noisy computer environment .
p05129
496 posts
 
If you use a fiber network, the line is clean compared to copper. Also if you go with the 1G fiber network, the latency is very very low and the bandwidth is huge.
Also, USB is a terrible interface to a dac. As for power cables, I think this is 1 of the most important cables out of the few that you need. Just like dedicated circuits to your audio equipment make a big difference.
emergingsoul OP
1,124 posts
 
p05129

why is usb a terrible interface to a dac?
troutki50
41 posts
 
USB is not a bad choice for many DACs and setups. I have fibre to my home and shot out 3 DACs from my streamer and straight from my phone to them. Outside of the "most" critical listening, both werw very, very good with the biggest attribute being ease of use. Good sounds all arounf but my SACDs played through my CDP was always superior. (Different dacs and such)

I am a tube fan. Dont care about "what measures best." So in my world...keeping it a bit syrupy as that is my jam.

Hope others can find their ideal stream.
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