“USB has been both the biggest blessing and the worst curse of audio that I’ve ever had to deal with. It’s bad enough getting the right headphones, amps and digital sources without having to worry about how to hook it all up. The primary issue that plagues USB is not jitter, but noise. Computers can readily dump noise down the USB power lines, and the USB sending and receiving chips generate noise, all of which can get into a DAC and come out the other end as distortion.
This has lead to numerous solutions — everything from cables to boxes such as iFi’s iUSB 3.0 which do everything from supply better USB bus power to re-clocking the signal, reducing excess processing and noise……..As the first iFi product that I’ve owned, the iUSB 3.0 has been a great and versatile addition to my system.”
Thanks Amos Barnett (Currawong), glassmonkey (Micah Rose) and Head-Fi!
http://www.head-fi.org/a/head-fi-buying-guide-cables-accessories
