RP4 USB ports... good enough?

[rebbi]

This is actually quite helpful, thank you!


I use the USB port on my Pi 4 to feed an Emotive Stealth DC-1 DAC.  I see no reason to suspect that the USB ports on the R-Pi-4 would somehow produce lower quality, or different, zeroes and ones than would a coaxial S/PDIF hat.  

I recommend the following article:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum...tter.1943/

From that article:

Conclusions
As seen from pure measurement point of view, there was no case where USB was worst than S/PDIF. Indeed the reverse was true in that S/PDIF was noisier in some DACs. So the default assumption that somehow S/PDIF has some advantage over USB is simply false.

Given the convenience of USB when using computers and networked audio players and streamers, I see no reason to use S/PDIF. You get a superior architecture with no need to get yet another dongle to create S/PDIF out of your computer.

The other great thing about USB is that it will be here for all time. It is so prevalent in computer world that it has no chance of dying.

Not covered is higher functionality of USB with respect to support for uncompressed multichannel, DSD, etc. and using USB becomes a no brainer.