What to buy? JCAT XE or pink faun USB Card?

[Manfred]

Thank you very much for all your input.

I have played a bit around yet. I had bought an AQ Niagara 1000 and 2x AQ Blizzard last year but did not retest all USB options I have again. All Devices TV, Devialet, Media Renderer, iFi for SotM and Switch are  plugged into the Niagara 1000.

I have in another PC JCAT Femto and will put the Sotm tx-USBexp together with the JCAT Femto in my JRiver based media renderer in the Living room and do a retest with/without the JCAT USB Isolator and AQ Carbon and or Transparent USB Cable again.

The current set-up with ifi PSU and SoTM tx-USBexp with the new Niagara 1000 sound's better without the USB Isolator (BD Diana Krall Live in Paris - striking of the piano keys has a light strange tonality now with the USB Isolator). I did this test last week. Without the USB Isolator it sounds more like Devialet AIR.

Before my purchase of the Niagara 1000 sound over USB had a digital glitch which I didn't like, the USB Isolator at that time got rid of the digital glitch.

I like the idea with the Paul Hynes PSU. For me it would be SR4BT-12 with 5V,7V,9V,12V to be flexible.

After retesting the different options I will decide about the Paul Hynes PSU.

Since a few weeks I have the Paul Hynes SR4BT-12 LPSU with AQ Z3 1m power cable to power my Sotm tx-USBexp (7V, 1.5A). It's a really winner for me - digital glitch is not any more an issue and the dependency on different USB cable is small. The AQ Carbon has a little bit more bass than my Transparent Performance USB cable. The Transparent has a little more natural flow. But its hard to hear the difference because I have to switch the cables. and the difference is small.

My conclusion from a more general PoV is power quality and noise you must get right before comparing different USB cards and cables.