Is USB overrated as decent digital source?

Expensive ? What about the Hagerman Technology HAGUSB for wopping total of $129?

That is the first one I would try to do the switch to USB digital.

I have an Ayre D1xe player over 10K, and I just bought a Wavelength Cosecant USB DAC a couple of months ago. The Cosecant is every bit as good as the Ayre and when you add in the benefits of having you music in itunes it's the clear winner.

I have been studying this for a few months and there are several approaches. Finished products such as Gordon Rankin's Wavelength products, less expensive but possibly as good stuff from Scott Nixon, or the kit approach. Google DDDAC for an example.

I am presently using a Scott Nixon USB DAC (modified by me by replacing the output caps with some I like much better and running it from a battery supply) and couldn't be happier with the results. My previous player was a Naim CDX-2 ($5,000) and I have no regrets.

I see no reason to get a converter to go from USB to spdif and then feed that to a conventional DAC as there are one box devices. Some use oversampling so that is something to consider. The Nixon DAC as well as others have basically 2 chips, the USB receiver fed to a DAC chip. Some also use a single chip, a USB receiver that also ouputs analog but all of these oversample so I personally would stay away.

I bought a Mac Mini as my server with storage on redundant firewire drives and it is a cheap (relatively) and very simple solution. I tried it on a Windows system but it becomes very complicated, the best ripper is a clunky third party program that is difficult to set up and use and the best players are even worse as well as having to use additional plug in programs to bypass the Windows kmixer digital handling that screws up the sound. The Apple Mini is simple and has a remote to control your music library

Herman,
I have been considering the Mac Mini with either a Hagerman Chim or a Wavelength DAC. I have been wondering what you use for a screen with the Mac Mini and do you need a mouse and keyboard? I was hoping that, if it were to be used as a music server only, that it would be possible to get a very small flat screen and that only a mouse would be needed.

It comes without screen, keyboard, or mouse but just about anything will work. I bought a 19 in lcd at Compusa on sale for $199, an Apple keyboard and mouse. It will suppost a wireless bluetooth mouse and keyboard but I didn't see the need. When you boot up it it looks for both and won't go on until you plug them in, besides, you will want to edit file names and make playlists so you need a keyboard. You may want to go with a bigger screen as the mini comes with a great remote that you can use to control playback.

http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html