Maximising sound quality from USB

[Gazjam]

Change of motherboard (with SPDIF header - direct feed from the MB makes a difference) and sperated linear power rails, you'd get a nice bump for not a big outlay.
You CAN go down the PC audio rabbit hole, trick is to know where to step off!

Loads of forum posts and articles out there, but its a time drain.
Nowadays at my end, even Airplay 2 from the IPAD into the AppleTv sounds great and "more than good enough"...

After a brief investigation, my motherboard does not have a spare SPDIF header.
So I plugged in my Asus Essence STX II to use the SPDIF pass through.
No noticeable difference in sound quality between the SPDIF and USB.

Probably time to draw a line under improving the quality from the PC and look at a dedicated streamer sometime in the future.