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50 minutes ago, anewmission said:

I'd just keep using usb if that's the case. I know all the ps audio and audio gd stuff is dsd and 768khz pcm

 

Depends on the interface. The CMedia CM8888 chip on the Pink Faun cards will push 8 channels at 192kHz and whilst it'd be possible to do some highly custom faffing around to quad up 8 channels to 768 it'd take some very custom work that most designers would rightly consider 'pushing poo up a brick wall'. There is nothing else that does I2S indigenously off a PCI interface any faster; the other solutions basically run a USB interface in the middle. 

 

Running USB puts the onus on the downstream device to deal with jitter etc as best possible, but the throughput rates are huge - and high frequencies are possible.

 

 

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Over the years  decades I've had quite a few audio/htpc pc's.  I love them.  Finnicky, incrementally updated softwares and os, that once set up perfectly worked, well, perfectly.  Note can be an utter beitch to set up or after some updates.

Had a Q8200 system that worked great with Jriver, Zune, foobar.

I3 worked fine too.

i5 did too.. lol, a graphics card just adds to the noise for audio, go onboard graphics... but...

 

Currently running an i7 8700k, but yeh in an Antec 920 case, RTX 2070 gpu, 32 GB, several ssd's and hdd's.  Typically spotify, youtube or jriver flacs.

 

The thing about streaming is that you can take it as far as any other source, spend $$$$ on speakers and $$$ on amp, be ye not afraid of pimping out a "mere streaming pc".  I've loved all of mine.

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14 hours ago, rmpfyf said:

 

Depends on the interface. The CMedia CM8888 chip on the Pink Faun cards will push 8 channels at 192kHz and whilst it'd be possible to do some highly custom faffing around to quad up 8 channels to 768 it'd take some very custom work that most designers would rightly consider 'pushing poo up a brick wall'. There is nothing else that does I2S indigenously off a PCI interface any faster; the other solutions basically run a USB interface in the middle. 

 

Running USB puts the onus on the downstream device to deal with jitter etc as best possible, but the throughput rates are huge - and high frequencies are possible.

 

 

Yeah I did read somewhere that the usb connections use packets to send data. I wonder if that's why my firewire audio interface sounds so smooth. It's meant for recording up to 8 microphones but I occasionally use it as just a dac. 

I haven't heard any of the thunderbolt audio interfaces but it makes me wonder.

The professional world has a few different ways of transmitting data between the computer and the dac/adc. Two of which are similar. Dante and avb which are basically ethernet straight from the pc to the dac. 

There is also Madi which I'm not completely sure how it works.

I think most hifi dacs are still using usb2 but I could be wrong there.

Not sure if thunderbolt has died out now but I still want to try it

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29 minutes ago, anewmission said:

Yeah I did read somewhere that the usb connections use packets to send data. I wonder if that's why my firewire audio interface sounds so smooth.

What do you think firewire and ethernet send?

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15 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

What do you think firewire and ethernet send?

Probably the same? 

Possibly firewire was just the standard for a long time with pro dac/adc's. 

I did some reading up on it about 2005 and firewire was the better option at the time, I guess usb has come a long way since then.

 

Does thunderbolt work the same way? I always thought of it as an outboard pci slot

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4 minutes ago, anewmission said:

Probably the same? 

Possibly firewire was just the standard for a long time with pro dac/adc's. 

I did some reading up on it about 2005 and firewire was the better option at the time, I guess usb has come a long way since then.

 

Does thunderbolt work the same way? I always thought of it as an outboard pci slot

They're all the same. Implementation is the key; it's not the technology. USB can be sensational and firewire terrible, and vice versa.

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2 hours ago, Ittaku said:

They're all the same. Implementation is the key; it's not the technology. USB can be sensational and firewire terrible, and vice versa.

And surely there is something to do with bandwidth and amount of channels. Pro audio is steering away from usb. Back in the day they used alot of adat/optical.

Now most mixers and rack mount dacs have a few options but dante and avb seem to be where it's headed. Alot easier to run an ethernet cable to the stage than a 32 or 64 channel balanced snake.

I think with dante the channels are virtually unlimited

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1 hour ago, anewmission said:

And surely there is something to do with bandwidth and amount of channels. Pro audio is steering away from usb. Back in the day they used alot of adat/optical.

Now most mixers and rack mount dacs have a few options but dante and avb seem to be where it's headed. Alot easier to run an ethernet cable to the stage than a 32 or 64 channel balanced snake.

I think with dante the channels are virtually unlimited

 

Dante is amazing compared to what I was used to dealing with.   

 

About USB though...   Isn't "# of channels" just a software construct limited only by the bandwidth?      USB 3.1 is 10 GHz - I have seen multi-track USB mixers

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1 hour ago, aussievintage said:

 

Dante is amazing compared to what I was used to dealing with.   

 

About USB though...   Isn't "# of channels" just a software construct limited only by the bandwidth?      USB 3.1 is 10 GHz - I have seen multi-track USB mixers

I think usb3 can do 16 channels at 192 max. Thunderbolt is 4x that amount and avb dante is unlimited tracks at either 44.1 or 88.2

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