Best Cable Option: Streamer to DAC

@cleeds It is likely that harmonics of 22kHz come from percussion instruments, that are not continuous by nature.  100Hz (drum roll) will give you (modulated) 22kHz with bunch of sidebands spaced 100Hz apart.  First two sidebands (21.9kHz and 22kHz) will have already very small amplitude and the rest of them can be ignored.  Sidebands appear because signal is modulated (not continuous).  The danger here is that anything above half of sampling frequency will, in D/A process, fold into 0Hz and up.  With 44kHz sampling 22.1kHz will become 100Hz signal and there is no way to remove it.  We might not be able to hear 22.1kHz, but will definitely hear 100Hz.  I stated that even with 44.1kHz it is very remote possibility and folded-over frequencies will have extremely small amplitudes.  96kHz would eliminate any possibility of this happening while 192kHz is a waste of space on HD, IMHO.  I have few plain redbook CDs with such breathtaking quality, that makes me believe that 16/44.1 format is not the limiting factor.  192kHz sampling or 24bit resolution might be important in studio during mixing, to avoid loss of quality, but final product in 16/44.1 is fine with me.

 

papafrgog,  rate of incoming signal and rate of D/A conversion have to be synchronized.  With async USB computer sends bunch of samples (frames) at certain rate (usually 1 kHz).  DAC receives such frame and places it into buffer.  Dac signals back to computer when buffer is over or underflowed and computer adjusts the size of next frame.  That way rate of D/A conversion is based on DACs internal stable clock only and no data sample is lost.

@cleeds instead "First two sidebands (21.9kHz and 22kHz) will have already very small amplitude and the rest of them can be ignored."
it should say:
"First two sidebands (21.9kHz and 22.1kHz) will have already very small amplitude and the rest of them can be ignored."

kijanki

It is likely that harmonics of 22kHz come from percussion instruments, that are not continuous by nature.

Any percussion instrument is an "continuous" as any violin or other instrument. Consistent with the Fourier Transform, this wave can be recorded.

... 100Hz (drum roll) will give you (modulated) 22kHz with bunch of sidebands spaced 100Hz apart ... Sidebands appear because signal is modulated (not continuous).

The signal is analog, it is continuous.

The danger here is that anything above half of sampling frequency will, in D/A process, fold into 0Hz and up ...

Anything exceeding half the sampling rate is filtered out as part of the A-D conversion process. It doesn't "fold" into anything. You can easily prove this with measurements.

Any percussion instrument is an "continuous"

No, it is not. If you record drum roll it will show individual bursts with silence in between.

The signal is analog, it is continuous.

Analog and continuous are two different terms. When you strike drum once signal is not continuous. There is a silence before and after. Any modulated frequency will show on FFT as a root frequency and sidebands. It applies not only to amplitude modulation, but to any modulation, including time jitter of digital signal.

Anything exceeding half the sampling rate is filtered out as part of the A-D conversion process. It doesn’t "fold" into anything. You can easily prove this with measurements.

There are analog filters before A/D process but they cannot be very sharp. By definition they have to be even group delay (Bessel), and those are very hard to make in analog domain. Bessel filter characteristic show practically the same, weak attenuation within 2x Fc, no matter how many poles you use. The whole idea of single bit converters (Delta-Sigma) was to avoid sharp filters by pushing quantization noise higher. In any A/D and D/A process there is ALWAYS something that folds over. The only issue is the scale (amplitude) and all I stated is that Nyquist applies only to non-interrupted (continuous) frequencies, but artifacts of this violation are likely non-audible with redbook CD and definitely non-audible with 96kHz sampling.