Why not a run high quality USB cable

Steve,
Would it work with USB to Toslink Converter? My friend wants to run 30' of cheap IC from the sound card to receiver while his receiver has Toslink input. 30' of USB extension + converter + 3' glass Toslink is perhaps better?

Steve,
Does the repeater "screw up" the timing of the stream so that implementations that depend on "constant" USB rate for clock recovery don't work? If so, async USB may not be affected. The price is so cheap, I may just get one and try it with my QB-9.

larry

These repeaters usually interfere with the "back-channel" communications, both adaptive and asyc. They also add a LOT of jitter. Even if you get one to work you will probably need a reclocker to fix the jitter. I have at least one sitting in the reject box.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Thanks, Steve, for the reply. For $15 I decided to try the cable referenced above to satisfy my own curiosity. I connected it between my "front end" netbook and Ayre QB-9. I used my 5M USB 2.0 cable for a total of 15M of USB cable. I couldn't hear any differences. Sounded fine to me. Of course I don't have any equipment to take any type of measurements at the DAC input. And, I was only sending CD data, I don't have any higher rez PCM to try.

Larry_s,
Thanks for the test. Even if there is a small difference my friend doesn't care and his receiver is more of Mid-Fi. It is still better than running 30' long ICs.