ipod w/ dock vs. thumb drive

sponger

Currently using a thumb drive plugged into the USB port on the avr to play WAV files. With an ipod plugged into the denon ipod dock, I'd be able to use the analog inputs on the back of the receiver as opposed to the USB port. Would there be a sound quality difference?

I was looking over specs on Marantz receivers and noticed that they now have "audiophile-grade USB converters." So, that got me thinking that the typical non-audiophile-grade USB input might not be up to par in comparison to good old-fashioned analog inputs. Any thoughts on that are much appreciated.

Syndil

Don't bother trying to interpret marketing-speak as reason. Just because Marantz uses the made-up term "audiophile-grade USB converter" and Denon does not means absolutely nothing.

This really comes down to one question: Where is the better DAC?

When plugging the USB drive into the AVR, the AVR's DAC is doing the conversion to analog. When using the iPod w/ analog inputs, the iPod's DAC is doing the conversion to analog. Is the iPod's DAC better than your AVR's DAC? Highly doubt it.