Why not a run high quality USB cable

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.

Let's not forget that Larry_s has an async USB DAC, where the clock is not recovered from the input stream and transport and interface jitter don't exist.
Kijanki, your friend might still be OK, though, and the low price of the USB cable justifies at least a try. What other decent interconnects could one use for the same price?

Mihaitaa,

That's what I have (Benchmark DAC1) but I use Airport Express across the room instead of long cable, with 3' glass Toslink to DAC. AE has low (250ps) jitter, according to Stereophile measurements, that is further suppressed by Benchmark. My friend tried it a while ago but couldn't make it work. He returned it to Apple store and doesn't want to try again. It was most likely software setup issue.