USB-S/PDIF Converter or USB DAC?

I did A/B comparisons for a long time with my WA Brick and Gordon is right. Going longer than one 5 m USB cable degrades the sound. I could hear a clear difference when trying three and even two USB cables.

Was this through a powered hub or just an extension cable?

Hmm... I'm intrigued by the wireless USB hub. I don't think I'd worry about UWB as a RF technology--its a very, very low level signal; we are talking about impulses here. Anyway, I have a hard time believing your are going to get interference problems with your hardware.

B'sides, the upside is huge--if the Belkin lit is to be believed, its freeking fast. USB 2.0 is 3mbps, and they say its 100x faster. Plenty of bandwidth to do very interesting things, including 24/96.

With reference to some other prior comments, and I may be wrong here, I don't think pops and clicks are a USB issues. When my DAC loses sync, it takes at least a second to re-sync. Anything resolving as a pop or click strikes me as being a source problem, power problem or the like, not a USB falling off the BER cliff problem.

I've used USB repeater cables and that sounded one helluva lot better to my ear than going toslink for long distances... Granted, it was a crappy toslink cable, but the difference in audiophile speak was "not subtle."

I am intrigued by USB as soooo many posts claim its superiority, but can somebody please explain this:
-Isoncronous (isosyncronus?) data transfer..
-and bidirectional with error corrrection.
-We also have the new DVD players with buffer systems to do the error correction,
-then we get the external clocks like the BigBen or the DCS verona that enslave transport and DAC to the same clock, so no error from 2 clocks there, supposed to be great also!
Everyone claims to be the best...
What about a huge overbuilt transport like VRDS, CEC or Forsell...

I would only trust my ears because there are a lot of technical explanations that sound soooo logical but when the time comes to hook the thing up to your system they just dont sound that good...
I had in my system Squeezeboxes modded and not which have Ethernet connection, I dont think you can go more bidirectional than that! Unless they are not using the function (isoncronous maybe?) It does sound nice and very comfortable BUT not audiophile quality really (compared to say a Forsell transport)
I had a intensly modded DVD player with the buffer thingy and extra clock etc, it just dont cut it (compared to say a CEC transport)
I have yet to try the external clock and a USB DAC but I am getting less and less motivated by this findings...
I am really intrigued by the Wavelenght DACs mostly. I hear a lot of good things about them!
Anyone compared some of these in their own system?
Thanks

i share most of jsadurni's confusion and would benefit from some good explanations. it would seem to justify a new thread.