Yes, I believe in shielding.
On the Neutron Star DAC I am using, shielding is part of the implementation.
huh? I suggested a Nucleus + Roon Ready DAC.
What did you you think I said that was against the idea of separation of Roon Core and Roon Endpoint?
If the shielding can’t prevent the behavior of a simple crap power supply, what is it accomplishing?
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If “bits are bits” which you have said is true…why would directly connecting a DAC vis USB to a computer running Roon be any different in sound quality than the Roon Core/Roon Endpoint model?
Very intriguing video, liked the part with the multiple recordings of the same performance at different sampling rates etc… This exactly what I am doing with a DAW by bouncing 192/24 to 192/32fp, 192/16 etc. and comparing them auditorily. To my ears after 192 it’s gets hard to hear any differences at higher sampling rates, but with Bit Depth the 24-32 bit difference is very audible especially with acoustic instruments sources. Have you tried this?
I quoted this at you recently. Please read it this time, or if you have, and still have questions, feel free to ask me.
also:
To be fair to @danny - it was me who said it and yes - you are 100% right. There is no proof that there is a difference between those approaches. I like it because of the flexibility. No need for a full computer rig to have a setup in my nightstand! Just take the phone for a roon remote, point it to that endpoint and voila, wife happy I am not sequestered in the music room 
- Sound quality differences? - no proof they exist - bits are bits.
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THINK OF THE NOISE!
v
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Power supply noise circulating directly on incoming wires bypass the shielding and cannot necessarily be rejected via common ground etc… To be fair I am convinced this is not an easy problem, and is one that all the best DAC vendors are facing, and they dedicate efforts to it, as it influences the final result.
My DAC is USB 3, not Ethernet. It audibly benefits from galvanically insulated (and short) cable. And I take many precautions on limiting power line pollution.
Oh, come on, that’s two computers and a DAC. Just because the computer of the networked DAC is in the same box doesn’t make it not a computer.
Because they employ different data transfer protocols. TCP over IP (WiFi or Ethernet) re-transmits on errors and/or drops. USB Audio 2 does not. So, with a very lossy connection on the USB cable, you can get dropped music frames. Not clear this actually happens in real life, though.
What about USB3 ?
This is a pretty good summary of USB protocols:
Pretty sure he and everyone else means general purpose personal computer of some sort when they use the word computer and not some pedantic definition meaning “computing machine”
Hell, even the DAC itself is a computer by that definition, as is your IR remote.
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Except that doesn’t really happen in the real world.
Here’s a real world example. I have one noisy digital combination. If I power a Chromecast from the USB power outlet of an AudioPro portable speaker it’s noticeably noisy. Lots of RF chatter. This goes away if the CC is plugged into a normal USB wall wart. This means:
- the USB power supply from the speaker is noisy
- the Chromecast is poor at filtering that noise from its analogue output.
If I add my Chord Mojo and feed it from the Chromecast optical the noise goes away. Even if I power the Mojo from the noisy USB power it’s silent. So an optical cable is a £15 fix. Also, a £400 DAC/pre-amp has better noise isolation/shoelding than my CC, not a big surprise, but not expensive for competent engineering.
Not the most scientific experiment but all done by ear 
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USB3 is a different way of signalling the bits on the wire that allows higher speed data transfers. You’d still use USB Audio as a higher-level protocol on top of that, just as with a USB2 connection. At audio rates, there’s no need for USB3; USB2 is fast enough.
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You mean a Chromecast Audio, or a regular HDMI Chromecast? What are you doing with the output from the Chromecast Audio? In other words, is both the power supply and the audio or digital output of the CCA plugged into that speaker? If so, there are other avenues for mischief…