Please comment my signal flow (DA conversion via USB)

[cowby]

Hi,

I am using Windows 10 with Bitwig and Cubase 10 and monitor & mix by headphone. Right now, my chain is as below :

PC USB -> Antelope Discrete 4 (Gen 1) and use SPDIF out to Questyle twelve master headphone DAC amp to do the monitoring and mixing. The D4 mainly for AD conversion if I need MIC input. And 95% of time I use my Questyle Twelve to do the monitoring/mixing. And I use lots of VSTs for composing.

Question 1:

In my chain above, what's the role of D4 in this setup ? I am confused. Is the USB signal go thru D4's DA converter and then feed out the digital signal to Questyle 12. And it performs another round of DA conversion and output to my headphone?

In the above chain, I am not sure if the DA converter is doing anything or just do the by-pass job and feed out the digital signal from USB to Questyle twelve.

If the DA conversion of D4 is performing in my case, my plan is I'd like to upgrade D4 to either Pure 2 or Amari, will i have better sound quality ?

Regards!
Cowby

[BertKoor]

Audio interfaces are usually NOT the weakest link in the chain.

You said the connection between the Antelope D4 and DAC is SPDIF. That is a totally digital connection. The Questyle DAC should receive exactly the same bytes as the computer sends out. So the purpose of the D4 in the chain is exactly that: provide a digital audio connection over USB between the computer and the DAC.

Personally I don't see why you have hooked up this already rather classy interface to another DAC. Having read the tech specs, the AD/DA converters on your D4 are already pretty good. Honestly, there's not a lot of room for improvement. It's quality is far above "good enough for Rock'nRoll"

Have you ever tried monitoring from the D4 directly? Can you really tell the difference, even blindfolded?

If you have money to burn and are looking for improvements in the chain:

1. Acoustical room treatment
2. Upgrade headphones / monitors