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Importance of source quality with asynch USB DAC?

I have never tried computer audio and I'm considering either a great DAC with mediocre synchr. USB in, such as Bel Canto DAC3, or an asynchr. USB DAC such as Ayre or Wavelength. The advantage of the former being I can use my CD player as source until I can buy a new computer, and the advantage of the latter being I can simplify the system.

So my question is how important is the quality of the source computer with an Ayre QB-9 or Wavelength. My current laptop is a Dell Latitude 420 (I believe), which is 4 years old. Alternatively I could use an even older Sony Vaio PC, but that's old. I know people rave about Mac Mini + an asynch USB DAC...that would be my goal down the road, but how would it sound in the meantime, compared to a Bel Canto DAC3 fed thru S/PDIF from a Rotel CD player as transport?

Thank you!
lewinskih01

Showing 2 responses by aljordan

aljordan
46 posts
 
Hi,

I used to own a Wavelength Cosecant V3 asynch USB DAC. While no computer that I tried sounded bad with it, there were some differences in sound between different computers, which tells me cleanliness of the USB output does have some effect at least with that particular DAC.

However, the differences between transports with the Wavelength were no where near as great as the differences between transports with my old MHDT Labs Havana DAC.

I think the most important aspect of a computer in the listening room is finding a computer that is very quiet from the perspective of fan and hard drive noise.
aljordan
46 posts
 
Hi Mryan,

I've built a few servers as well, and similarly, one of my servers doesn't sound as good as the other two. I don't think the cause is specifically CPU power, as the one that doesn't sound very good is more powerful than one of the machines that sounds very good. Hence, I am interested to know what motherboards you are using in your various servers that both sound good and don't sound good.

The machine I built that does not sound quite as good uses the same style Seasonic power supply as in my other machine, an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, an Intel E6600 CPU and Corsair RAM; all reasonable quality stuff.

Alan
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