Well, may be I was unclear. Of course I2S is better, but in our reality it's virtually unavailable, let's take DIY and mods out of the scope.
What makes a difference is whether you have a separate converter connected to DAC through SPDIF only(!), or you managed to squeeze it into the same box, such as USB DAC. In the latter case, even if you use SPDIF internally, you have all the possibilities to embed a word clock link, thus eliminating the major drawback of SPDIF.
Just a short signal path in controlled environment makes jitter levels even lower.
So delivering the data straight to the dac makes life easier regardless of I2S availability.
What makes a difference is whether you have a separate converter connected to DAC through SPDIF only(!), or you managed to squeeze it into the same box, such as USB DAC. In the latter case, even if you use SPDIF internally, you have all the possibilities to embed a word clock link, thus eliminating the major drawback of SPDIF.
Just a short signal path in controlled environment makes jitter levels even lower.
So delivering the data straight to the dac makes life easier regardless of I2S availability.