Anyone making plans for USB 3.0?

[Rudy Gireyev]

I thought I'd see if anyone has heard any announcements on audiophile gear supporting the new USB 3.0. I suppose it would mostly be DACs but who knows.

The 3.0 products and chipsets are supposed to be coming out later this year. In fact one company is already selling an external hard drive that supports USB 3.0. Just have to buy a PCI card from them that has 3.0 capable controller, or use it with the old USB 2.0.

Rudy

[poppachubby]

I thought I'd see if anyone has heard any announcements on audiophile gear supporting the new USB 3.0. I suppose it would mostly be DACs but who knows.

The 3.0 products and chipsets are supposed to be coming out later this year. In fact one company is already selling an external hard drive that supports USB 3.0. Just have to buy a PCI card from them that has 3.0 capable controller, or use it with the old USB 2.0.

Rudy

In terms I can understand, explain the benefits of 3.0. Thanks man!

[noddin0ff]

USB 3.0 is supposed to offer 4.8Gbit/sec data rates. USB 2.0 offers up to 480Mbit/sec. So USB 3.0 will be ~10X faster. (USB1.0 transfers 1.5Mbit/sec).

The USB3.0 standard is supposed to be backward compatible with 2.0 devices. I think most everything is 2.0 now. So I'm not too worried about updating any of my DACs.

Actually, as I suggested in a previous pappachubby post, a lot of DACs and audio devices that use the USB interface don't support anything beyond CD resolution 16bit, 44.1Khz. This is because a USB standard was adopted for CD resolution audio back when USB 1.0 was the only option. That's pretty much where USB 1.0 maxes out.

The take home message is that for CD quality audio, USB 1.0 was perfectly adequate for transfer of data to a DAC. USB 2.0 is overkill, but you tend to get fewer drop outs. -- USB 3.0 will be way overkill for audio. Even high-res, multi-channel.

I don't think USB 3.0 offers any must-have technology for audio. I use optical myself for getting things out of my computer to my DAC. High res is supported there on each end. As far as I can tell it's all the other components in the chain that could stand improvement to support formats beyond CD res if you wanted to use any USB.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

cheers

[poppachubby]

USB 3.0 is supposed to offer 4.8Gbit/sec data rates. USB 2.0 offers up to 480Mbit/sec. So USB 3.0 will be ~10X faster. (USB1.0 transfers 1.5Mbit/sec).

The USB3.0 standard is supposed to be backward compatible with 2.0 devices. I think most everything is 2.0 now. So I'm not too worried about updating any of my DACs.

Actually, as I suggested in a previous pappachubby post, a lot of DACs and audio devices that use the USB interface don't support anything beyond CD resolution 16bit, 44.1Khz. This is because a USB standard was adopted for CD resolution audio back when USB 1.0 was the only option. That's pretty much where USB 1.0 maxes out.

The take home message is that for CD quality audio, USB 1.0 was perfectly adequate for transfer of data to a DAC. USB 2.0 is overkill, but you tend to get fewer drop outs. -- USB 3.0 will be way overkill for audio. Even high-res, multi-channel.

I don't think USB 3.0 offers any must-have technology for audio. I use optical myself for getting things out of my computer to my DAC. High res is supported there on each end. As far as I can tell it's all the other components in the chain that could stand improvement to support formats beyond CD res if you wanted to use any USB.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

cheers

Thanks for sharing nod-doggy. Great insight. I also use optical to my DAC and think that the results vs. coax are audibly noticable. I guess the 3.0 will be good for transfer of files to portable, I don't mind that at all since I load my MP3 player every second day or so.

[noddin0ff]

Yeah, file transfer and, I imagine, video+audio streaming may be something to look forward to for USB3.0. However, I doubt USB offers the encryption protection that HDMI offers. I can't see 3.0 becoming a connection for delivering content, just moving files like you said.

[nightflier]

Well there's a couple of things to keep in mind:

- USB 3.0's theoretical limit is 4.8Gb/s, but in practice only 3.6Gb/s has been demonstrated.
- USB is still hampered by a lot of overhead and is highly processor dependent, so all the components of the chain have to be able to support the higher speeds.
- While USB 3.0 can reach 3.6Gb/s, it's unlikely any hard drive or storage device will be up to the task. Even solid state drives suffer from processor dependency-related bottlenecks.
- Firewire 800, while slower in speed, is better suited to video streaming and other high-volume instantaneous-access types of applications. High quality video + audio requires a tremendous pipe and one that can sustain a high throughput, which is not where USB 3.0 will find its niche.

My guess is that while companies like NEC and Fujitsu will have early USB 3.0 devices out soon (maybe already), these will fall quite a bit short of the expected 4.8Gb/s rates advertised because of these any many other factors. Most likely, though, the noticeable speed improvements will still be seen as a big improvement, so the standard should find quick adoption in the market place, in much the same way USB 2.0 did.

On the A/V front, unfortunately, the time-to-market is typically much longer than on the PC side, so I don't expect to see USB 3.0 support until 2011, or maybe later. The fact that there is little perceived need for it right now, certainly doesn't help either.

In short: don't hold your breath for this one.