Right now I have my NUC running ROCK in office upstairs and my SMS-200 streaming to my DAC downstairs. I have a wireless mesh system, NUC connected to one hub upstairs and the SMS-200 connected to the other hub downstairs. Much to my surprise I can stream DSD128 over my wireless network, with the odd drop. DSD64 plays flawlessly. The obvious advantage of moving my NUC downstairs is I wouldn’t get dropouts. Would there be any other benefits to taking the SMS-200 out of the chain altogether, connecting the NUC direct to DAC? Specifically, I’m wondering if the direct connection would sound better.
In theory the network connected sms200 should perform better. In practice it seems YOU are the one to know beacuase you are able to try both. Please do and report back the results
If you move it, you can compare wired networking to the SMS with direct USB, removing the wifi from the comparison. That would be interesting.
(In my experience with that test, I found little or no difference. Did it with a Windows NUC, not yet ROCK.)
I did that before in a Windows 10 box that is not a NUC before I got my sMS-200. It sounded good only if tX-USBexp is added to the chain. With the tX-USBexp, it sounds very close when compared with the sMS-200 in the chain.