Own the Cosecant, owned the Brick-both incredible products...Have done exhaustive research on this matter...Choose whatever DAC you like, but I can tell you from experience of going through the Computer DAC "as a front end route", and listening to alot of different DAC's (from Benchmark to Levinson) the Brick from Wavelength betters the Benchmark in spades. For $700 bucks or so more than the BM, it's a no brainer IMO. The USB controller in the Wavelength stuff is also custom designed by Gordon, not a commodity-based DAC chip like just about everything else out there with a USB interface at the moment. To me thats makes Wavelength VERY special indeed.
To answer your question though:
USB is a bi-directional connection, so jitter is dealt with very effectively-on the way in, and therefore corrected on the way out. I believe on Gordon's site it says jitter is eliminated actually, could be mistaken though.
SPDIF is not bi-directional, therefore requires clocking to deal with jitter. It was never designed to do what we do with it in hifi. So to answer your question USB is a better choice of the two, sonically, and practically.
Whether the future brings a better connection than USB at some point remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, my current USB/PC based is the BEST digital I have ever heard, and I have heard alot.
To answer your question though:
USB is a bi-directional connection, so jitter is dealt with very effectively-on the way in, and therefore corrected on the way out. I believe on Gordon's site it says jitter is eliminated actually, could be mistaken though.
SPDIF is not bi-directional, therefore requires clocking to deal with jitter. It was never designed to do what we do with it in hifi. So to answer your question USB is a better choice of the two, sonically, and practically.
Whether the future brings a better connection than USB at some point remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, my current USB/PC based is the BEST digital I have ever heard, and I have heard alot.