Hmmm…. So many variations of advice.
My streamer is a MacBook Pro that supports usb and optical.
I tried many usb cables and while they all had a differing sound / noise signature all had a glare that induced listener fatigue. I tried the ifi device that allowed one to connect an external power supply to the usb connection. Improvement but still not great. And moving from switched power supply to linear also provided improvement.
I moved to optical and the glare was removed. I could relax more and listen. And then moving to glass optical cable was a significant improvement over plastic/cheap optical cable.
Optical support is going away unfortunately.
My streamer is a MacBook Pro that supports usb and optical.
I tried many usb cables and while they all had a differing sound / noise signature all had a glare that induced listener fatigue. I tried the ifi device that allowed one to connect an external power supply to the usb connection. Improvement but still not great. And moving from switched power supply to linear also provided improvement.
I moved to optical and the glare was removed. I could relax more and listen. And then moving to glass optical cable was a significant improvement over plastic/cheap optical cable.
Optical support is going away unfortunately.