@m669326 The Alpha USB is made by Berkley. It clocks the USB output of a computer so you can plug it into any digital input. Your DAC has it's own USB input. Mine does not. Eventually, all DACs will have USB inputs because so many of us use our computer as a source component. Computers are much more powerful than streamers especially if your system does theater duty. Some people are under the illusion that dedicated streamer's sound better. This may be true in some cases but I have not heard a streamer better the combination of an Apple computer with channel D's pure music program.
A stupid question for which there's no sensible answer.
I know, I know. At least I've labeled it properly.
Here goes: of the following elements of a system, how would you rank their influence on the sound? In other words, generally, which would someone want to upgrade or prioritize, and in what order, if all of the following pieces were inferior to an amp/preamp and speakers they were happy with? Power cables, connector cables. speaker cables. streaming source, music source, dac (I vote for this one as #1), room treatment, speaker placement, type of chair, earwax quotient, what you ate for lunch, etc.
I hereby give my permission for everyone to tell me this is an idiotic question since the real answer is: it depends. (But I did put a "generally" in there somewhere). Anyway, I prefer that we debate this based on what we've experienced when we've tinkered. So I guess I'm really interested in anecdotes.
Here goes: of the following elements of a system, how would you rank their influence on the sound? In other words, generally, which would someone want to upgrade or prioritize, and in what order, if all of the following pieces were inferior to an amp/preamp and speakers they were happy with? Power cables, connector cables. speaker cables. streaming source, music source, dac (I vote for this one as #1), room treatment, speaker placement, type of chair, earwax quotient, what you ate for lunch, etc.
I hereby give my permission for everyone to tell me this is an idiotic question since the real answer is: it depends. (But I did put a "generally" in there somewhere). Anyway, I prefer that we debate this based on what we've experienced when we've tinkered. So I guess I'm really interested in anecdotes.