Streamer only

Any thoughts or decisions from the OP? @pal 

I've put my money where my mouth is, and upgraded my streamer.

Against my better judgement (price wise) I'm in the process of purchasing an Antipodes K21. Was looking at Innuos Pulse and Lumin U2.

Should match well with the Innuos Phoenix USB.

I guess the OP is AWOL 🤔

@jerrybj Sweet. Post your impressions. In looking at the article posted below decide which output to use to your DAC- which DAC do you have?

Regarding this comment: @moonwatcher

One thing people seem to ignore (correct me please if I am wrong) is that to use the "better" clock in your external DAC over the one in a "cheap" streamer, you must use asynchronous USB or I2S, otherwise the clock in the streamer is doing the "driving". The use of Toslink optical or coax outputs from a streamer limits you to however good the clock in the streamer is. At least this is what Hans Beekhuyzen implied in a recent YouTube video of his.

In checking Antipodes articles it says this:

The implications of using different connections:

1. Ethernet: Using Ethernet means the music server only performs the Server App step and the DAC performs the rest.
2. USB: Using USB means the Server App, Player App and regeneration step are performed in the music server and precise-clocking is left entirely to the DAC.
3. S/PDIF, AES3 or I2S: Using S/PDIF, AES3 or I2S means the Server and Player Apps, regeneration and re-clocking are performed in the music server, and the DAC’s re-clocking is applied to a cleaner signal. However, remember that S/PDIF and AES3 have only low bandwidth transmission capabilities.

So according to Antipodes it appears USB and I2S are not similar, and I2S is more like AES3, at least with their streamers. I don't know whether this is industry standard or if different streamers would not clock it using I2S (?) 

@mclinnguy Interesting from the Antipodes article. According to that, even S/PDIF can (but maybe not always depending on the DAC) be reclocked by a downstream DAC. 

All I know is that both USB and I2S are asynchronous in nature, and I2S keeps the clock stream and data stream separate, instead of multiplexing them together like USB, so, in theory, I2S should offer a "cleaner" signal to the DAC or at least less overhead in processing, for less jitter.  Could I hear a difference? I'm not sure. 

But I'd be happy if more streamers in the $400 to $1100 range would offer USB or I2S outputs to feed an external DAC so we could be "done with" this issue and know for certain that the "better" clock we have paid for is doing its thing, along with having the bandwidth to do higher resolution files if we want. Thanks.