External DAC: connections

I have already posted this to the Head-Fi forum, but I think that some useful advice might also come from here...

I have just ordered a SuperPro 707 DAC USB, because the idea of feeding the Solo with the output of a crappy motherboard integrated sound card was a big no-no.

I see that this nice little DAC can also be connected to the PC with S/P DIF, in addition to USB.

My integrated sound board (Asus motherboard) is able to output a S/P DIF signal at 48 or 96 Khz, so I was wondering whether the best solution is connecting the DAC to a free USB port or using this S/P DIF connection.

I know that integrated sound boards are crappy as far as it concerns audio quality, but am I correct in thinking that if I use the S/P DIF output to feed the external DAC then it won't matter because the motherboard will actually only feed a pristine bitstream to the DAC (which will do a much better conversion) without altering it?

What worries me a bit is why 48 Khz rather than 44.1... Since ordinary FLAC/Wave/320Kbps MP3s are 44.1 Khz, is there a risk of a badly made upsampling to the signal sent to the S/P DIF? Not that upsampling (if made in the digital domain) is necessarily a bad thing (actually it might make filtering easier for the DAC), but the trick is HOW that upsampling is done..

Thanks for the advice!

Edited by Lucabeer - 28 Jan 2009 at 8:19am

Glad to see you are enjoing your new SuperPro 707 DAC. I have read about it but I honestly have my DAC needs met already so I did not purchase one. Good luck.