MacBook Pro or PC soundcard

A usb dac is nothing like a soundcard, all due respect. A sound card goes into a PCI (or PCIe) slot and outputs music via an spdif connector. A usb dac tries very poorly to convert usb audio into spdif, though it does a very poor job. USB was invented to conect printers and mice, not for music.

Definitely agree it is getting beter. Just not there, yet.

I just thought of something. There are no cd transports with a USB output. They are all spdif (or aes/ebu). Plenty of "excellent" USB dacs, yet no transport mfg has gone with USB. Wonder why? We all know.

It's just wrong ;)

Doggie, they use those interfaces because they are better than spdif. Notice how they absolutely keep away form usb as that would be just silly.

I thank the highend transport world in helping make my point. USB is just sily,

Doggie - my point is USB is just bad. If it were good, transports may use them. You have to agree the idea of a transport implementing a jitter collector like USB is crazy. USB is like a bellybutton. Eveybody has one. Lets not confuse the industries attempt at functionality and trying to make something easy with saying it is the better protocol. It is actually the worst. Have you heard a good sound card implementation compared to whatever usb dac concoction you are using? I have compared most every one and people actually scratch their heads then they hear the soundcard over usb. Lets leave it as this - agree to disagree. I am qiote confident that in a year or two, USB "high end PC" audio will be non-existent and there will be quite a few used usb interfaces on the market - really cheap.