Quote Originally Posted by Rudy Gireyev
Have you ever considered using a balanced XLR output from your computer to the DAC? Would that not be the ultimate connection medium as far as bandwidth and sound quality?
Or would it be? On the down side this would require a sound card with balanced XLR output and I have no idea if such a beast exists. And if it does it probably will not be inexpensive.
In fact there is such a thing as a "balanced" digital connection that uses XLR connectors. That is defined by the AES/EBU standard which is the "professional" standard vs. the consumer standard, S/PDIF. No, in fact it is not the ultimate standard: I2S is considered superior because of its lower jitter characteristics.

However I think you're tending to confuse digital with analog signals. They are fundamentallly different. A balanced digital connection, i.e. AES3, pertains only to the electrical transmission and doesn't require a balanced sound card. Few consumer sounds cards output AES and fewer still output I2S. The majority of consumer DACs don't have AES connections (although some do).

Quote Originally Posted by Rudy Gireyev
...
I thought the whole point of upsampling is that you don't need the 24/192 source material. I understood that upsampling took 16/44.1 and upped it to 24/192 with magic algorithms and such. No? Just out of curiosity why would you go with Gigawork istead of getting a MSB Link III?

Rudy
Yes, it is possible to "oversample", e.g. go transform from 44.1 kHz to 88.2 kHz, or "upsample" e.g. 44.1 to 192. This has some esoteric advantages mostly pertaining to filtering the hypersonic frequencies and to some extent, reducing jitter in case of upsampling. However neither over- nor upsampling can improve the inherent resolution of the sound; to actually have higher resolution you have to start with a higher resolution signal.