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Battle of S/PDIF vs USB: which is better?

companyja

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I agree with the above posts, sometimes USB output can be unpredictable; I just got a Fiio K5 Pro and hooked up via USB to my PC it has horrible popping issues when the PC is under load (and occasionally at near-idle, while watching videos and such). The fact that the Fiio had SPDIF in was a godsent and I've hooked it up to onboard SPDIF out - no more popping or any noise at all for that matter. Had I gone for something "better measuring" like a Topping D10 with an additional amp, for instance, I'd have the headache now of trying to replace my motherboard or find USB addon cards or something of the sort. I guess it saved me from additional problems, so I like the legacy inclusion of SPDIF even in simple USB DACs.
 

Sal1950

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It's too bad that Toslink is so restricted in bandwidth, it nicely solves most other issues.
We do need an upgraded optical computer interface IMO.
 

wwenze

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I agree with the above posts, sometimes USB output can be unpredictable; I just got a Fiio K5 Pro and hooked up via USB to my PC it has horrible popping issues when the PC is under load (and occasionally at near-idle, while watching videos and such). The fact that the Fiio had SPDIF in was a godsent and I've hooked it up to onboard SPDIF out - no more popping or any noise at all for that matter. Had I gone for something "better measuring" like a Topping D10 with an additional amp, for instance, I'd have the headache now of trying to replace my motherboard or find USB addon cards or something of the sort. I guess it saved me from additional problems, so I like the legacy inclusion of SPDIF even in simple USB DACs.

PCIe i.e. onboard sound and soundcard is simply more reliable than USB. USB protocol has no DMA, for example. DPC latency screws it up, too.

The same problems occur if you use a USB -> SPDIF converter.

I have the same headaches since I'm on mITX. I even got a USB3 capture card but now I'm thinking of buying something that uses the M.2 interface.
 

RayDunzl

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It's too bad that Toslink is so restricted in bandwidth, it nicely solves most other issues.
We do need an upgraded optical computer interface IMO.

1588407725201.png
 

Sal1950

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Sal1950

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Here and there is gear which works to 192 khz. The part shown by Ray is common. Lots of makers still cap it at 96 khz.
I can do 192 from my PC to the Emo DC-1 if I keep the cable short. More than a meter or so it falls out.
Not really an issue since I have only a couple 192 files, and they play with no problem over HDMI to the pre/pro
 

companyja

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FWIW I can do 24/192 from the realtek onboard into the k5 pro without a problem through a generic 1.5m TOSLINK optical, I just see no need for it
 

RayDunzl

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I probably mentioned it 10 pages ago, but when connecting gear in a chain, for whatever reason you might come up with, I can't name any "little boxes" that have a USB audio output to go to the next USB audio input.

Of course, I'm perpetually behind the times, so, if I've missed a slew of them, please correct me.
 

Ferrum Master

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I had actually few bad toslink cables that simply died on me and could not work on 24/192. They started to act weird. But at 96KHz were totally fine.(AK4118 based).

I do lot of fast dirty measurements at home using an ADC that outputs SPDIF thus galvanically isolated (BEIS AD24QS, almost nice little thing without stress to burn it) and simply effort less without need to fire up laboratory equipment. I had degradation using 192 vs 96KHz because of cables and also once TOSLINK receiver going bad, I guess overused it. It was not only jitter, it acted out of place with random results each time. Loop test only for the cable did not pick up problems, only real time simulated data via DAC and ADC and then the PC. Last I did was opamp test... did I got fakes, and compare it with my older proven ones... and yes I had LME49710 fakes... You can see it fast in the plots, but that's another sad story.

So keep that in mind. If you can... measure and compare and see what works best for your particular setup. For me doesn't matter much... I don't have any content higher than 24/96 anyways.

Creative just limits everything due RIAA and copyright issues as far I can remember, they had for certain models and they locked it afterwards it was during WinXP times and X-FI's, but you could capture and send 24/192, not anymore... it could apply to else too.
 

Tommi

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I thought I would add something from my experience as I had a problem with USB myself. My current setup is Audioengine D1 connected to a computer via optical and powered from a socket, I have also powered monitors connected to it (that are always turn on) as well as I use it with different headphones. At the beginning I was trying to connect D1 to my PC via USB which caused a lot of problems, I had ground noise all the time which was heard in speakers, not as much in headphones, but regardless of the volume you could hear that noise in the speakers, the noise was different depending on what the computer was doing, under load it was definitely louder and more intense. When I connected the D1 to the computer via an optical cable all the noise disappeared without lowering the sound quality, sound quality is actually indistinguishable between USB and Optical, but thanks to Optical I'm free of all noises that were caused by connecting DAC via USB.
 

Sal1950

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When I connected the D1 to the computer via an optical cable all the noise disappeared without lowering the sound quality, sound quality is actually indistinguishable between USB and Optical, but thanks to Optical I'm free of all noises that were caused by connecting DAC via USB.
Great, sometimes ground loops and other noises like that can be very daunting and hard to cure with USB or S/P coaxial. Toslink optical should provide as good sound quality as any, better in this case as it removed all the noise issues. Enjoy it!
 

SoundsInteresting

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I want to add my experience with the USB-interface. I have been using a USB-soundcard (Soundblaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro) since the mid-00's, I have used two headphones on it: an HD598 (which was rebranded as the HD599) and an HD700, both from Sennheiser.. A recurring problem which I always had was arbitrary crackling noise. I can only describe it as similar to what you might hear with an old LP but much stronger, or similar to when you burn wood in fire and hear a crackling sound. Here the interesting thing: it doesn't matter which USB-port you use, it can come any time on any port and sometimes switching the port helps, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes leaving it on the same port and booting the computer again solves the problem. i have had this on two different systems, an Acer prebuild and a computer which I assembled myself (3700X, X570 Gigabyte Elite). I have used multiple operating systems: Windows7, Windows10 and several Linux distros. Some operating systems (W7) have this worse than others (Linux distros) but on all operating systems you hear it in some way. On Linux distros it seems to be limited to when you change the volume by moving the slider with the mouse (not when you use a keyboard-button to change the volume), on Windows7 I had it all the time when just watching a video and it could get loud. I agree with the topicstarter that we should look at the measured data but I also believe that maybe not everything which is relevant gets measured. Maybe the USB-interface becomes a problem when the same USB-hub (which several ports are connected to) is being used for other data too (keyboard, mouse...). Maybe the USB-interface becomes a problem when there is too much electromagnetic interference from the components on the PCB (like a motherboard). I don't have the answers, I can only share my experience that I had a lot of problems with crackling noise which was related to the USB-interface given that it often disappeared or changed by simply plugging it into another USB-port.

Hi Michiel

I may know a little something about this issue because I think I have the same problem. I have an X-Fi Titanium HD PCIe card, not exactly the same setup as you but I have the crackling issue sometimes as well. To fix it (temporarily) I go into the sound control panel and disable then re-enable the active sound device. I'm currently using the headphones output and a set of headphones but if memory serves I think the issue also occured when I was using the SPDIF TOSLINK connection to my Yamaha amp.
I guess it comes to down to turning it off and on again. The issue comes back after a while, usually a matter of hours. It's pretty annoying but not terribly intrusive. It seems to happen when the card has been idle for a while. If I'm gaming and the sound it constantly in use it doesn't seem to happen, even after a full day.
I'm not sure what the cause of the issue is. From what I have read it seems to common with X-Fi cards.

For the record, because it's relevant to this discussion, the sound quality from the SPDIF TOSLINK has always sounded very good to me. I've never had any faults or issues with it. I'm using a fairly short optical cable and my sound options allow up to 24bit, 192KHz. I stumbled onto this discussion because I was relatively ignorant about the digital audio that went through SPDIF TOSLINK and always it was assumed it was bulletproof and perfect. I stumbled onto the issue of jitter by accident and have read this long discussion thread as well as another one to try and understand it. Most of this is way over my head as a layman but I've gathered some of an idea what is going on behind the scenes.
From what I gather here, it sounds like the jitter problem used to be more prevalent but has gotten better over time as design faults with SPDIF have been worked out. I believe the component quality on the X-Fi cards is fairly high and Yamaha amps are good quality so I don't think any of my audio pathway suffers the effects or low quality/crappy component. I still want to read on though to see if there are any technical faults with my setup. I'm a bit of a purist and like to know that there are no quality compromises in my audio.
 

Rockfella

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I had grounding issues with USB before. I fixed that and the weird hissing stopped altogether.
 

Rockfella

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Always been happy with USB till now but since the time I have upgraded my graphics card for PC gaming there is a lot of noise that I experience ONLY while gaming. Have to consider SPDIF option just for this reason maybe. The GPU is Nvidia and it is a knows issue with it. No fix.
 

Veri

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Always been happy with USB till now but since the time I have upgraded my graphics card for PC gaming there is a lot of noise that I experience ONLY while gaming. Have to consider SPDIF option just for this reason maybe. The GPU is Nvidia and it is a knows issue with it. No fix.
SPDIF could be a nice work-around, yes.
 

Sal1950

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Rockfella

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Sal1950

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I think this will work.
That should work, just be careful to check the pin outs on the motherboard as stated. If not correct/standard it could be a problem ;)
"Always refer to your Motherboard Manual and if necessary use the pin provided to adjust signal and make sure the connectors have correct sequence that matches your Motherboard output signal."
 

Rockfella

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That should work, just be careful to check the pin outs on the motherboard as stated. If not correct/standard it could be a problem ;)
"Always refer to your Motherboard Manual and if necessary use the pin provided to adjust signal and make sure the connectors have correct sequence that matches your Motherboard output signal."
If I do this I have to get the 5V from a different header on mobo/ PFA images.
On the contrary I was thinking of giving K5 pro to my brother and buy Schit Modius once it becomes available in my country.

I am facing this exaxt issue:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/3d-vision/41/249476/nvidia-ground-loop-noise-under-load/

Known issue in Nvidia cards no fix yet. humm destroyers like Behringer MicroHD HD400 and AudioQuest JitterBug are not guaranteed to work. Was wondering if moving to XLR will end this problem?

Noise happens only when the GPU is stressed (gaming) no issues otherwise. I can also live with it as I seldom game on speakers .. mostly headphones but when I do the noise can be annoying.
 

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