Which clock is being used, the one in the DAC or the streamer? And the quality matters. On USB input the DAC’s clock is used. On SPDIF or AES the streamer (or CD transport) clock is used. This alone can make a big difference in the sound between streamers. And subsequently how they are hooked up. So think about the consequence of this. A ‘lesser’ DAC might sound much better with a quality streamer/clock hooked up to it via SPDIF than the same DAC hooked up via USB to a laptop. Another way to look at it, if two streamers are compared against each other using the same DAC hooked up via USB, any differences between the two streamers will be less apparent because they are both using the same clock in the DAC. See the link below as an example of one explanation on this… I’m not an expert on the why’s and where’s but have heard the differences in my system.
Help settle a streaming argument!
This is a SQ argument and is as follows- I argue if you connect your streamer to an outboard DAC the streamer does not matter it’s just serving the music to the outboard DAC to do the work. Therefore, buy a basic streamer. The other is that you need to buy a top quality streamer and DAC to get great SQ.
I liken it to cd players or the more pretentious cd transport argument- if the intent is to connect to outboard DAC the cd player doesn’t matter the outboard DAC DOES!
features and functionality aside! Thoughts…..