What Does A USB to SPDIF Converter Allow?

Most of the USB converters I know of have only usb inputs. You would not be able to use them with a transport unless the converter had optical or digital coax inputs. I think the synchro mesh by empirical audio will do what you want, re-clock the signal from a transport and output that into a DAC, but it is not a USB converter.

Thanks for the info.

If you already have a good quality DAC (or CDP with DAC inputs) but either
a. the DAC didn't have a USB input or
b. the USB input was an older (synchronous) system or only ran up to 48kHz or 96kHz

a good USB-SPDIF interface will allow you to continue using your favorite DAC but upgrade the USB connectivity

Not all USB-SPDIF interfaces sound the same though.

The good ones I have heard are the Wavelink HS and the Offramp 4 (now in v5). My friend likes the Bel Canto REFLink a lot too. The Berkeley Alpha USB is also highly rated. I have not heard the last two so can't proffer any real recommendations.

If you already have a USB DAC that also has a S/PDIF input, you can usually improve the performance by using a good outboard USB to S/PDIF converter. Most USB DACs have poor implementations of USB interfaces. A good 1.5m long S/PDIF cable is required. The better the cable, the better the result. Also, the better the power supply for the USB converter, the better the result.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio