[qb45]

Their FAQ states that it provides its own 5V power supply for the downstream device and somehow retransmits the USB packets using a high accuracy clock.

The power issue is definitely legitimate. USB power supplies are noisy and the noise can bleed to analog outputs if the soundcard has poor power supply noise rejection - I once built a USB-powered soundcard on the at90usb162 microcontroller and it produced a lot of background noise which was annoingly correlated with CPU activity. It went away when I inserted a 3.3V stabiliser between the USB power rail and the MCU, making it run from this 3.3V power. Reportedly, some commercial devices have similar issues (no links, but googling "USB DAC scrolling noise" may be a good starting point).

OTOH, I'm not sure about the importance of reclocking. USB audio cards synchronize their DAC clocks to USB host clock and hence any USB clock jitter induces DAC clock jitter which causes some amount of distortion, but I know of nobody who verified whether this is important in real world scenarios.

IIRC, clock jitter caused some real problems with SPDIF DACs back in 1980s and some people still feel more comfortable using "high-precision clocks".

[mkozlows]

Re "whether this is important in real world scenarios", in the context of high-end audio, there are four types of products:

1. Those that make clearly audible and measurable differences. Speakers, headphones, and upgrading from total rock-bottom near-broken electronics.

2. Those that make measurable differences that probably aren't audible. Various super-low distortion figures on amps and DACs, or going from 320kbps MP3 to FLAC. Almust certainly not detectable by human ears, but instruments can see a real, measurable improvement.

3. Those that make unmeasurable differences that are not audible. These are obviously worthless and snake oil.

4. Those that make unmeasurable differences that are audible. These are either magic (none that I've seen so far), reveal limits to our previous understanding of audio measurement (these probably have existed at some point, but I'm skeptical that any current products qualify), or are actually #3 in disguise.

I think the worst you can say about Schiit is that their stuff falls into #2 -- measurably, but not audibly, an improvement over some other thing -- and since they relentlessly refuse to make official claims about the audible properties of their products, I think that puts them into solid respectability as an audio company. The worst you can accuse them of, really, is unnecessary metaphorical gold-plating.

[seanp2k2]

While I don't disagree with any of your points, I do think that a great many people enjoy not just accuracy / objectively more-accurate sound, but certain distortions. The classic example here is a tube amp; while measurably less accurate than many solid-state amps, many people like the slight distortion / compression / "tube sound".