timpy
Speaker Abuser
But was the improvement due to the repropagation of the same USB signal or something else, like galvanic isolation, or noise?
I let the Mutec transmit over AES/EBU at the native sampling frequency to the DAC, so it isn't USB in to USB out It will upsample I believe, generate a word clock and all sorts of other functionality that comes with it (it's a pro audio device after all) that I don't need.
It is reclocking with an accurate clock, and is almost certainly a lower noise than any PC, whether it achieves that by galvanic isolation or not, I don't know. I can only report that it does work really well, would have been much cheaper if it didn't.
I did try a Trends USB to Spdif device that @GruntPuppy lent me (can't remember the model number sorry). Oddly, it was consistently worse than the raw USB from the PC. Not as much worse as the improvement made by the Mutec in the other direction, but noticeably spittier and grittier than the PC was on it's own. I only had the Topping D90 to try that with though as the 2Qute didn't stay (I didn't like it) and the DX7 Pro hadn't arrived yet.