Is USB overrated as decent digital source?

FWIW i am using a external dac made by M-Audio called "firewire audiophile." I like it because it is a great stand alone dac for my G4 cube and it has coaxial digital outputs. Sounds great as is, but down the road i will probably add an external dac to furtehr enhance the sound.

Just thought i would let everyone know that there are other solutions for fast data transfer besides USB.

Dont know if firewire is any cleaner, but i know its faster.

Firewire was designed from the ground up with music and sound in mind.

Anyway...

You implicitly raise an interesting point. Considering Firewire and USB, what are the relative strengths/weaknesses of each for computer music servers and is one better for these applications?

I am very satisfied with the Slimdevices Transporter. It is the only device that I know of that will output AES/EBU and it also has a word clock input. The DAC is outstanding and probably every bit as good as my Audio Aero Capitole. Having said that, I still run it through my Audio Aero into my main listening room The Transporter's DAC is a bit too analytical for me. I run the analog feed from the Transporter into the next room.

The Transporter is connected to my Computer using RJ45 even though it has full wireless capacity. It works very well with my G5 itunes, to the point that I have not played a CD in quite a while. Also, I can search for streaming audio over the entire world by type, region, style of music, etc.

Listening to some of the African Nations has been fun. Check it out!

www.slimdevices.com

mikechai@gmail.com - anywhere near 1 nsec is high jitter in my book. For instance, the stock Squeezebox and AirPort Express have 300-400 psec, which is half what you are saying and I can easily hear the jitter.

Until you have heard really low jitter, you dont know what you have been listening to all these years...

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer

Firewire and USB are similar in performance. The advantage of USB is there are more drivers and better chips available that support it.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer