How are most audiophiles going from streamers to DACS


USB a to b, , Coax, or Optical ? what's the better one ?   I have a Node 2I and a Denafrips ares 2 dac thats  in transit , what is everyone using for audio ? not brands of cable just format what way is better for streaming High rez music ?
nickaboy1
With my Lampizator DAC and their USB module it’s a no-brainer - USB!

Their module uses a 32-bit engine capable of 384 kHz speed. It is asynchronous and uses two internal clocks for re-clocking. It also is self powered from an internal power supply so you use a non-powered USB cable. No power is taken from the computer and the noisy computer line is physically interrupted and insulated.

Also it’s not converting to SPDIF - it is much better than that - it converts to i2s and it is connected DIRECTLY to the DAC chip, bypassing all input and receiver stages. This really is the best USB solution - at least right now.

If you can’t go USB, then go coax. But don’t go optical - it may not be able to handle data flows over 96.

The most Superior Connection at this moment for digital which not even MSB or DCS or any other high end audio company has managed to work out is what Playback Design (Andreas Koch) uses, a proprietary technology using Fiber Digital Connection from Streamer to DAC. 

The Guy who invented the DSD Recording Machine that allowed you to records mix and master all in the DSD Domain with out conversion, at the time he invented this no one else could figure it out and Sony sold these machines to studios.

Because of where things must be physically, my router sends wifi (16 bit/44.1 KHz PCM) to an Audioengine B-FI. I connected its Toslink output to the Toslink input of the DAC. It sounds great to me. The important components are the amplification - a Quicksilver Integrated in my case - and the speakers - Focal Aria 906's. They both made major improvements over what was in their place previously.

Ethernet or I2S. Most people will say there dac doesn't have those connections and you would be right. The better dacs do and for good reason. You can spend hundreds if not much more trying to get USB to sound half way decent and that's after spending $1000 for a good USB cable. Using a good ethernet cable, now you don't need a server in your audio room. Another plus!
The most important piece of a server is the software that reads ripped data or streams data from an outside site like tidal. There are some very good software programs that will do this on a $200 linux raspberry pi box or a $50,000 linux server (I had such a box that I used for work with TB's of commercial NVMe and SSD storage along with 256G ram) and there isn't any difference in sound quality going thru ethernet and with better SQ than using USB.
If I had to have a dedicated server in my audio room, then use I2S.
@itsjustme nailed it.  USB to the DAC.  Change the streamer if it has no usb out.