I finished an article last year, took me two years to finish it, and it's gone (actually I lost the whole drive, just stopped working one day)
plus four or five interviews with more experienced buddies (interviews were not important), since I remember (trying) main part, I write it again
here make it short
title being a bit misleading, should be isochronous
USB has four modes, bulk, control, interrupt, isochronous
audio data doesn't allow "asynchronous", Asynchronous is for USB fingers and portable drives
what asynchronous is just the clock singal, not the data, data is always synchronous (should be isochronous)
Asynchronous means
acting as own clock source, that's pretty pretty old stuff, but marketing makes it wow we're new king, no
pretty pretty early usb input (guess 2010, 2011? actully USB input appeared a lot earlier but I don't remeber which year, I used firewire)
is synchronous
IEEE1394, we call it Firewire from here and Thunderbolt, are asynchronous since the beginning, and they never ever make those marketings (the Firewire guy who made and revised the standard for those year was forced to resign, he now becomes some kind of a soulless guy, you know, FW didn't survive in the wave of USB, audio isn't important while facing survival)
I would say Thunderbolt is totally dead for audio, new mobos are all thunderbolt 3, only few ADDA included Thunderbolt (but only one of them is famous, Lynx), and all are TB gen 2. (adapter? adapter is taboo in hifi world)
since they are all asynchronous
now they are at the same starting point (firewire's dead, thunderbolt's too high-pitched, you can't find computers with tb2 so it's dead too, and you gotta find tb cable, pretty expensive)
the obvious mediocrity of USB is that you can't get a sound with completed highs/mids/lows, some are ok highs, worsen lows and some (actually xmos) the highs always doesn't sound well, mid and lows pretty good. with newer driver did improved a bit, but highs still lacks a lag.
one of explanations is that the layout of USB in the mobo are just too long, like 10 meters in a single piece of small mobo (data going a long road from the drive to the usb port), audio frequency gets kinda "trump" at the high frequencies while running at 480 Mbit/s, and usb isn't the top priority in the OS system.
TB is basically PCI-E, FW needs to install a PCI-E card (you could install PCI-E cards for USB as well, I have one..), the "road" of FW might be shorter, should be one of the reasons.
after a long audition of USB, and switch to FW, the highs are back, trebles are back, can't go back to USB anymore, although USB is the fastest, great-easiest-connecty-est method right now. it can't sound too good.
(dante is different thing, more asynchronous than any asynchronous, network doesn't require clock signal at all
but you need a route/switch to connect it or you are gonna need a mobo with dual net ports, and it doesn't sound comparably good like the FW/TB)
plus four or five interviews with more experienced buddies (interviews were not important), since I remember (trying) main part, I write it again
here make it short
title being a bit misleading, should be isochronous
USB has four modes, bulk, control, interrupt, isochronous
audio data doesn't allow "asynchronous", Asynchronous is for USB fingers and portable drives
what asynchronous is just the clock singal, not the data, data is always synchronous (should be isochronous)
Asynchronous means
acting as own clock source, that's pretty pretty old stuff, but marketing makes it wow we're new king, no
pretty pretty early usb input (guess 2010, 2011? actully USB input appeared a lot earlier but I don't remeber which year, I used firewire)
is synchronous
IEEE1394, we call it Firewire from here and Thunderbolt, are asynchronous since the beginning, and they never ever make those marketings (the Firewire guy who made and revised the standard for those year was forced to resign, he now becomes some kind of a soulless guy, you know, FW didn't survive in the wave of USB, audio isn't important while facing survival)
I would say Thunderbolt is totally dead for audio, new mobos are all thunderbolt 3, only few ADDA included Thunderbolt (but only one of them is famous, Lynx), and all are TB gen 2. (adapter? adapter is taboo in hifi world)
since they are all asynchronous
now they are at the same starting point (firewire's dead, thunderbolt's too high-pitched, you can't find computers with tb2 so it's dead too, and you gotta find tb cable, pretty expensive)
the obvious mediocrity of USB is that you can't get a sound with completed highs/mids/lows, some are ok highs, worsen lows and some (actually xmos) the highs always doesn't sound well, mid and lows pretty good. with newer driver did improved a bit, but highs still lacks a lag.
one of explanations is that the layout of USB in the mobo are just too long, like 10 meters in a single piece of small mobo (data going a long road from the drive to the usb port), audio frequency gets kinda "trump" at the high frequencies while running at 480 Mbit/s, and usb isn't the top priority in the OS system.
TB is basically PCI-E, FW needs to install a PCI-E card (you could install PCI-E cards for USB as well, I have one..), the "road" of FW might be shorter, should be one of the reasons.
after a long audition of USB, and switch to FW, the highs are back, trebles are back, can't go back to USB anymore, although USB is the fastest, great-easiest-connecty-est method right now. it can't sound too good.
(dante is different thing, more asynchronous than any asynchronous, network doesn't require clock signal at all
but you need a route/switch to connect it or you are gonna need a mobo with dual net ports, and it doesn't sound comparably good like the FW/TB)