Naim DAC optimal connection

Posted by: Vince H. on 19 March 2011

I'm about to pick up a Naim DAC and would like to know what would be the best sounding connection from a macbook. I've heard people say optical. I assume it would benefit from USB to SPDIF converter? Just wondering how sensitive the Naim is to jitter. I was planning to use USB from my macbook, but if a low jitter USB converter sounds better, I'll have to go that route.

I owned a Chord QBD76 and it sounded different through every type of connection. Optical from a macbook was the lowest quality connection. I had best results going through a USB converter.

Posted on: 25 March 2011 by Hook

Originally Posted by Asenna04:

Originally Posted by goldfinch:

...and besides Naim DAC usb port is usually used as a performance transport benchmark.

I am glad to hear this. Do other people share the same opinion?

ASenna04

Hi ASenna04 -

This seems to make sense, at least in terms of minimizing jitter. The white paper says:

"...When the Naim DAC is playing audio from a memory stick via its USB port, the DAC is the master and its master clock runs at a fixed frequency. But when the Naim DAC is playing audio via S/PDIF, the source of the S/PDIF signal is the master and the DAC’s master clock must, on average, match the frequency of the source clock."

But it would appear that, most of the time, the DAC gets the S/PDIF clocking right.

As far as RFI, EMI, and vibration, my thought is that that a passive device like a USB flash drive, powered by the DAC, should do less harm than a S/PDIF transport (which, except when connected via Toslink, could potentially be a source of electrical noise).

TBH, my experience has been that differences among DAC sources are very minor. I have a great deal of difficulty telling the difference between my PCI card, my Oppo BDP83SE (HDMI->Toslink splitter) and USB flash drives. Funny, I do hear differences between speaker cables, analog interconnects and power cables though...

Hook