Do Streamer only devices really impact sound quality?

@tk21 Good points.

Another thing that needs to be pointed out. The optimal mode of transmission depends a lot on the quality of the rendering in streamer. Some streamers take great pains in optimizing usb in use of high quality clocks and power supplies on dedicated circuit boards, ,others take usb directly off relatively noisy motherboards.

Point is not to generalize about inputs/outputs, each case is different. Research both dac and streamer for optimized ports and purchase compatible components. USB has some theoretical disadvantages, but implementation has been continually improving, blathering objective statements only further confuses people.

Point is not to generalize about inputs/outputs, each case is different...blathering objective statements only further confuses people.

@sns Oh, you mean blathering like this?

USB inputs are optimized in many dacs, preferred by many.

Really? Where’s your proof? Didn’t think so. Of the hundreds of posts I’ve read on the subject yours is the ONLY one I recall where USB was preferred to i2S with the exception of Holo DAC owners where it’s well known that those DACs are optimized for USB, which seems to be much more the exception than the rule. By contrast, I’ve read many, many posts where i2S and/or AES/EBU were superior to USB or SPDIF. Maybe your DAC sucks and can’t realize the benefit of an i2S connection, or maybe you used an HDMI cable that was too long — I dunno, but I think you’re in the distinct minority on this unless you can quote others preferring USB over i2S besides, apparently, people with your specific DAC (or Holo, obviously) because I sure ain’t seen them but can cite many (including me) who’ve found i2S to be vastly superior to USB. Your move chief.

I have (and love) a BlueSound Node 130. It has a great interface, and is easy and intuitive to use. For a while I thought about upgrading, but instead went with a DDC (Denafrips Iris DDC). It isolates the signal galvanically and optically, so the signal gets sent to the DAC (Denafrips Pontus II) cleanly.....I've done a review elsewhere here.

I'll keep what I have now as I'm completely happy with it, but at some point will want to compare the quality of that pair with higher end streamer. Price will be hard to beat, $600 for the Node 130 and $500 for the Iris DDC; damn good pair for $1,100

So @ghdprentice, you’re saying that if I put a $22K dedicated streamer somewhere in my listening chain, only then will I hear the benefits of what digital can do?

I wonder how many people have compared I2S with USB in a well-controlled A/B test.  I2S still isn't all that widely available.  My streaming DAC does have an I2S input but I've never used it.  In my system, the most likely path into that IIS port would be from my Mac's, uh, USB port, via a converter box such as the Sonore ultraDigital or the Matrix X-SPDIF 2.  I've been slightly curious to see if that would produce a noticeable improvement, but don't really want to add another little converter box into an already cluttered system. Besides, the SQ already is pretty darn good.  But I do wish my music server (the SGC sonicTransporter) had an IIS output port. My DAC with IIS input can support 16-32 bit PCM, while its USB pipeline supports only 16-24 bit.  Perhaps more importantly, IIS might eliminate the annoying USB handshake problems I sometimes experience.

IIS from the Matrix X-SPDIF seems to be popular among users of the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC. I wonder if this popularity doesn't stem from limitations of PS Audio's USB implementations, or from problems with the Direct Stream's network bridge card. Point is, again, that if we're going to compare USB to IIS, I think we need to specify the context of how USB is being implemented in the system we're comparing.