Agree with shadorne, no source is sending a jitter-free signal to the Dac. And aren't all decent DAC's manufactured these days asynchronous?It depends on what you call "decent", but by my standards, the answer is no. I'm considering a used NAD M-51 and a Benchmark DAC1, neither of which is async. The main reason I am asking is that my CD drive, a Cambridge CXU, does not have a USB Type B port. As far as I know, asynchronous USB doesn't work with a standard USB 2.0 output, so I would not be able to get an async connection to my CD player. I had heard that this is more of an issue with streaming output from a computer, but it sounds like that may not be the case. The M-51 has an "Ultra Lock" technology that they claim eliminates virtually all jitter; that may be good enough, but I just don't know.
Is an Async DAC Needed to Reduce Jitter when playing CDs?
I know that asynchronous DACS are useful to reduce jitter when the music source is a computer, but do you get the same degree of jitter reduction with non-computer sources like CD players? Also, does it make any difference if the DAC is R2R or Sigma Delta?