Ultra low jitter USB to SPDIF converters and multichannel audio

[superchiwawa]

Greetings audio nuts! :rockout:

I want to use my media center as an AV digital hub, and the simpler the setup the better. Since jitter is a big factor in audio quality, i was planning to buy a quality usb to spdif converter with high quality clocks for outputing all audio to the amplifier (don't really want to be switching between audio sources each time I want to play music or movies - that and it's cheaper too 🙂 ).

But I can't seem to find any info as to whether these converters (audiophilieo hi-face etc...) work with surround sound formats (movies and muaic).

Are these stereo only? or does it not matter (a digital signal being just that, and the jitter correction being done only on the sample rate... wild guess here)? Would be great if you could clear this up!

Thanks

S.

 

[igloo audio]

Hi Super,

To be honest, it's a pretty difficult question to answer, because it's very OS, Software and DAC dependent. The DAC's mention cannot pass multi-channel in standard operation, but DTS and Dolby AC3 can be sent over S/PDIF.

The LYNX Hilo AD/DA converter supports multi-channel via USB, but it always mixes down to 2-channels of audio out, However, it does support DTS and Dolby AC3 when choosing Non-PCM operation, which I'd imagine may pass-through DTS on its S/PDIF output. If so, this would achieve your objective, but only if your amplifier has a S/PDIF input supporting DTS etc?

Peter