I connect my laptop to my Mytek Brooklyn Bridge streamer/DAC via an Office Depot USB cable. It gives me perfectly serviceable sound quality from YouTubes, mp3's I've downloaded over the centuries, and fiddle recordings I make of myself on my now-aged Zoom H4N digital recorder. Works like buttah. I do, however, stream to the Mytek via an Ethernet cable that comes from my wall. And yes, bottom line, streaming grants me considerably better SQ.