Hacker News Reader

I actually recently discovered that my USB DAC was skipping a lot because I had it connected to a hub. Threw it directly onto the Mac Studio and now everything's peachy, so there are definitely downsides to trying to get a bunch of USB-A devices attached to one of these.

View on HN

Sadly it's been common for USB hubs to be dodgy ever since the advent of USB 3. I rarely had trouble out of 1.x and 2.x hubs, but 3.x+ hubs are consistently trouble. The only ones that haven't been problematic are those integrated into Thunderbolt docks, probably because those undergo more stringent certifications.

Are the ones in Thunderbolt docks actually USB hubs, or just USB host controllers speaking PCIe to the Thunderbolt controller?

System Profiler labels those in my CalDigit TS4 as hubs, but it's entirely possible that's not accurate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com