Are most DAC's compatible w computers?

I just tried using my pc with an external d/a. For the cost of a d/a along with the crummy quality of the pc, you are much better off just buying a decent cd player.
To get good sound out of a pc will cost a bundle. You need quality software for burning, more internal dampening, huge hard drives and.....I tried to bypass the sound card with a usb run dac and was totally disappointed with the quality.

BTW while much is made of the two way nature of USB,
I can't find anything in the technical descriptions that supports the theory
that USB does anything about jitter - the two way function is its device
communication and control protocol - take a look at wikipedia.com

Quite correct, USB does absolutely nothing about jitter in and of itself. It
must be the device that is connected via USB that is built do take advantage
of the bi-directional nature of USB that would do something about it. Take a
look at the information provided by Gordon Rankin over at Wavelength on the
subject here

To get good sound out of a pc will cost a bundle. You need quality
software for burning, more internal dampening, huge hard drives and.....I
tried to bypass the sound card with a usb run dac and was totally
disappointed with the quality.

I don't agree, and am quite curious why you couldn't get satisfactory sound
from your setup. Which USB DAC did you try Elevick? As far as the cost; Most
of us already have a capable PC or we wouldn't be posting here. It does not
take an extremely fast PC to stream music, nor does it require a whole bunch
of RAM. A Waveterminal is currently around $159 and will connect any USB
equipped PC to any DAC with either S/PDIF or Toslink inputs. The only other
investment would be in an external drive to store the larger files (a 250GB
Lacie drive is about $219) and most folk's entire collections would fit on that
single drive in Apple Lossless. Total investment is about $400. In
comparison to what folks on this site spend on front ends I'd say that is a
mighty small sum. Even if you add $1000 for the computer itself you are still
at the price of a nice front-end CD player or entry level turntable rig. Oh,
and iTunes is absolutely free and is excellent software for ripping and playing
your collection. Using this system through my Muse DAC the sound is
nothing short of superb, and I find no advantage to running playing a CD
through the same DAC - I am quite sure that an A/B/A comparison would
leave anyone stumped. I'd challenge anyone here to consistently identify one
from the other. As has already been said, the tremendous convenience of
having your entire music collection at your fingertips is priceless!

Perhaps this is getting off the topic, but all I want to accomplish is sending WAV or FLAC files from my computer to my Alesis ML9600 HD. I download a lot of digital soundboards and instead of burning them to a CD then playing or uploading them on the Alesis, I'd like to play (or transfer if possible) the files on my computer to the Alesis which will allow me to record them as 16, 20, or 24 bit and 44.1, 48. 88.2, or 96k (uploading from CD is 16/44.1).

My computer only has USB, SCSI, LAN, and Firewire connections. Can anyone give me some idea if what I want to do is possible or how I can go about it. Alternatively, I can transfer the lossless files to my Rio Karma which as analog outputs. I suppose I can hook these into the Alesis inputs and play the music on the Rio while it records on the Alesis. The sound on the Rio is pretty good, but would I have to worry about jitter?

Thanks

To Jax - I agree with you. But you know I am amazed by this Rankin fellow. At your recommendation, I read his website again - especially the following:

"On power up of the computer the 2 devices negotiate services... Since the USB receiver only has to handle these 3 frequencies, the clocking to the separate DAC IC has almost no jitter... Therefore the jitter problems of SPDIF almost go away using USB."

I did pass Logic and this ain't it. All this says is what we know, USB does not introduce jitter when transporting the signal from the PC to a device. Of course if I was going to charge $14K+ for a USB DAC I would be working hard to think of a good benefits statement too!

Pardales this is the real reason you might want to consider a USB DAC - because it eliminates the chance that the SPDIF from the Waveterminal to the DAC could introduce some error. Simple is most often better - getting rid of cables and connectors usually is. Plus you eliminate the cost of the Waveterminal and a good to great SPDIF cable... One reason I upgraded to a G5 is to run Toslink directly from the computer to the DAC - still evaluating but its pretty impressive with the Wireworld 5 Supernova

Please note that nowhere does Rankin say that there is any kind of error correction of the audio data during playback... I keep reading and hearing from people that think this is what is happening and I am puzzled as to how this got started.

And contrary to his site, there is most definitely a USB 2 standard which is why there are a billion plus USB devices worldwide -

Folks - you do not need to spend this kind of money to get awesome sound from your hard drive - you just need to sweat a few simple details, like anything else in our hobby. This is truly high end for the rest of us...

One last thought - if you have a G5 or a PC that supports SATA I strongly suggest you use it instead of Firewire to connect your external hard drive(s). It is vastly, infinitely, amazingly more robust and not a bit more expensive. Hard drives from the usual suspects at the usual places at ridiculous prices. Instant set up, you no longer even have to set jumpers.

Savvy vendors in this space with helpful websites are granitedigital.com and macgurus.com. You will be absolutely delighted

Ckorody - Thanks for your point of view. Don't get me wrong, I was certainly not recommending (or discouraging) that anyone go out and spend $14K on a USB DAC. I'm not sure where you are getting that price. The two USB DAC's Wavelength offers are the Cosecant at $3500, and the Brick at $1750. Both are tube-buffered USB DACs. The only reason I pointed to the site was for the explanation of the two-way nature of the USB interface. I've never heard any of their products. Should you care to take your puzzlement directly to the source I believe Gordon Rankin is a frequent contributor over at AudioAsylum you could publicly ask him yourself there, or, of course, send him an email. It does make sense to me (obviously)...if there the information is going just one way there is no reference point to the accuracy of delivery from the origin. If two way the device has the potential to check the accuracy of the origin and adjust (buffer) accordingly. It sure seems logical to me. I completely agree that you do not need to spend a ton of money on this technology to get very rewarding results. Thanks for the links too!

Another note as an addendum to your post: The Waveterminal does utilize an internal clocking device. The feed from computer to Waveterminal is indeed USB. From there you can go via either SPDIF or Toslink to your DAC. I've done no comparisons to a USB DAC, but compared to my Muse transport hooked up to the Muse DAC via their proprietary connector (optimal for those two units). FWIW I cannot tell the difference between a CD on the transport and the signal delivered from the hard drive via the Waveterminal (either in Apple Lossless or WAV), at least in the system as it is hooked up in my home right now (currently at somewhat of a compramise in room treatment). I'll be curious to do the same test in my main system, which is currently not set up due to a renovation.

Marco