USB Audio and Network solutions for a Deneb-equipped A4000?

[save2600]

I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi that works with Deneb. It's a pretty fancy card with a nice DAC, but with USB audio, you still need a really fast processor. Compared to a modern computing experience, I really was not impressed using USB for audio even when I had an 060 in my A2500. Computer slowed to a crawl when in use. Perhaps you'd have better luck with Zorro III mode in the A4000. At this point though, I think I'd pursue a Sunrize AD516 if I cared about 16-bit audio on an Amiga today. A lot better performance IIRC.

Oh and to date, there is no support for Wireless USB dongles. The guy behind Poseidon (Chris Hodges) mentioned there will probably never be either.

[save2600]

I have a deneb in a 2000 with an 030 board.  But I haven't tried usb audio yet.  Could someone tell me what usb-audio/AHI would give me over the standard amiga audio?

16-bit audio or "hi-fidelity" sound if you like. Good luck with that on a 2000/030 though. You'll be tweaking buffer settings all_day_long trying to get consistent/non jumpy sound out of her. Neat to try out, just to play around and experiment with - but it's way easer to simply hit the play button on your CD player and enjoy music that way  

Trying to play back higher-res audio through Paula results in a "dirty", more grungy lo-fi kind of sound.

BTW: These USB audio dongles do not replace Paula for native game sounds, etc., if that's what people are thinking.