Ok take for a moment that what your really asking is for some sort of Digital source to be changed to analog. Leave the USB out of it to begin with. USB is nothing more than a type of connection that will support a transfer rate of about 50MB a second. Are you interested in the dac, the connection, or how it gets interfaced with your source? All of them?
Then mass produced items get poor (generally) dacs the most expensive get the better dacs and better caps and better designs from the input (USB) to the output RCA.
IPODS do not output from USB they take input, they output analog which makes the ipod a non source. If you want to use the USB DAC from your computer then you place a whole additional piece in this puzzle as your computer must be fast enough to allow unbroken transmission to your DAC. This is easier said than done especially depending on the compression or non compression of your source and how the USB DAC supports the USB interface.
How does a winning combination sound? Better than most will admit, especially a audiophile, as we tend to hold on to the things we know, quite hard sometimes.
Then mass produced items get poor (generally) dacs the most expensive get the better dacs and better caps and better designs from the input (USB) to the output RCA.
IPODS do not output from USB they take input, they output analog which makes the ipod a non source. If you want to use the USB DAC from your computer then you place a whole additional piece in this puzzle as your computer must be fast enough to allow unbroken transmission to your DAC. This is easier said than done especially depending on the compression or non compression of your source and how the USB DAC supports the USB interface.
How does a winning combination sound? Better than most will admit, especially a audiophile, as we tend to hold on to the things we know, quite hard sometimes.