PS Audio PerfectWave DAC Upgrade

Question for Jiminia and anyone else: What sonic differences have you heard with the PWD between these input options:

1. Ethernet into the bridge
2. Computer USB to OR5 to PWD via I2S
3. Computer directly to PWD via USB

My main interest is the comparison between 1 and 2 and why they would be meaningfully different, if they are.

Drubin - here is Jiminias post:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1320430393&openflup&74&4#74

As for why, its simply differences in jitter magnitude and spectrum. Jitter is the #1 performance limiter in digital audio.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Thanks Steve, I had read that but somehow forgot that he covered all that ground. The one missing piece is Ethernet to the bridge. What's the jitter profile of that?

Drubin - one would have to open-up the PWD and measure this with much care. I have not done this. Even if I did and gave you the spectrum of jitter, what could you glean from that????

Noone has even correlated this kind of measurement with sound quality yet.

IMO, our best measurement tool is our ears. This is after all what we end-up using in this application. Its kind of like designing a software simulator for a car tire design. Helpful of course, but there is nothing like driving on the tires on an obstacle course and wet and snowy roads to find out if they are any good or not.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I don't really care about the jitter profile, Steve, I was just using your terminology. What I am curious about is the sound of Ethernet into the bridge compared to OR5 into I2S.