[Questor]

Since quite a few of you seem to use USB DACs, have any of you tried different USB cables?

I never thought it'd make a difference, but out of curiosity, I tried using a daiyo usb cable (gold plated connectors with ferrites). The main reason was really to look for better shielding (compared to stock usb cable) against the mess of wires behind my rack. Cost only $10 anyway, for 3m.

Interestingly, found that while I found it smoother, I did lose some detail using the daiyo. A friend who was over here says its quite a large difference, but I personally found it quite minute. But having heard the details, it's irritating when the sound now seems abit disjointed. The USB cables doesn't affect the character or balance of the sound at all and seems just to affect the level of detail.

Read online and user reviews says ferrites may affect the sound. People who bought the kimber usb cable even broke the ferrite pieces up and says its a marked improvement. I may break the ferrite on my daiyo and give that a try.

Any of you have any experience to share?

[Questor]

I was quoted $70 for 1m kimber usb cable.. anyone game to try?
Review here:
Kimber Kable: Kimber USB Review | Computer Audiophile

Interestingly, the reviewer made similar comments about the difference in the USB cable as I did (not hearing as much), but he believes it is a benefit to the sound - as in he believes what was taken away was the interference. I wonder about that!

Other forums have noted that taking out the ferrite from the kimber actually makes it sound better. This is my inclination as well.. I would rather have more details than less!

[Raddy]

The usb cable length is 3m for usb1 by specifications i believe. Hence at 3m u might be a little on the 'edge' considering usb audio has no error correction, unlike file transfers.

i read somewhere usb audio handles errors by interpolation, hence that might explain the loss in details u heard.

[gadenp]

I do not see how USB cables can play a big part in improving your sound quality.

USB is a digital transport of 1s and 0s

Basicly a good USB cable is one that, has short range, has proper shield and does not have a ferrier core.

As long as the cable does not exceed signal strength range, and a strong magnetic source (such as ferrier core, your tv) does do not interfere with the signal. The Signal will always sound the same. After all how will 1s and 0s sound different?


A properly well shielded cable like a Manhattan USB cable is good enough in my books.

And there is a much higher chance that a improper USB cable cause clicks or jitters before it affects sound quality......

[Questor]

That's interesting Raddy, so you think that the length is the main cause of the loss of details and not the ferrites? I guess I will find out. FYI Kimber also offers a 3M variant of their usb cable.

gadenp, I agree with your point, hence why this thread is started, because I can hear audible differences between usb cables. I am not saying it is a 'night and day' difference but it is perceivable to me. Makes no sense to me so asking others to chime in on their experiences. As someone who has been in the audio/hifi hobby quite awhile, sometimes these things make no sense. The only thing I can think of is signal loss or interference. Btw, what is a Manhatten cable?

[sabe]

Signal delivered by USB cable is digital. If there was any loss, you will hear more than subtle differences in your audio. I will say this is a placebo effect. Paying more for USB cables is like paying more for a gold HDMI cable or something trippy like that.

[wwenze]

*Cough*, even digital transfer methods can give errors. Just take a look at SPDIF. Even for an otherwise bit-perfect transmission, enough jitter can still change the sound.

And USB has loads of jitter. So...

Then there's also interference as mentioned above. Not forgetting the low-pass nature of the cable and the ferrite core.

And the method of transfer for USB audio is not lossless...

Somemore power is provided to the DAC via the USB cable from the computer through a wire running parallel to the data.

But personally, I feel that there is less difference with USB cables, because the computer that it is connected to is already so f-ed up. XD Styleaudio recommends powering their DACs from power adaptors, and Benchmark recommends SPDIF over USB.

And, the most important thing, blind test and see which you like.

ADD: Oh, and if you'd like my experience, I tried my USB DAC with and without the ferrite core clipped onto the cable. With the ferrite core it sounds smoother, but maybe less detail I dun know?

Same as when I added an extra capacitor.

Audio is so intriguing.

[Raddy]

Originally Posted by Questor

That's interesting Raddy, so you think that the length is the main cause of the loss of details and not the ferrites? I guess I will find out. FYI Kimber also offers a 3M variant of their usb cable...

Hmm im not sure how much ferrites will affect the signal (since im not an engineer )

Ideally the cable should transmit the exact data packets (a group of "1"s and "0"s) from the comp to the usb dac perfectly. However digital it is still fundamentally electric signals which can be affected and corrupt the packets, esp if the cable is out of specifications (too long) or poorly built.

As i mentioned earlier USB audio does not have error correction, hence corrupted packets are gone. But most times u don't hear nasty clicks and pops coz it does have error detection so a device is able to do its own error correction (usually by rebuilding a loss packet by guessing with its samples). I'm guessing this is where ppl hear the differences. It is not accurate, but it may not sound bad.

Hence, my conclusion is also as gadenp says, a good cable is really one that is well shielded and within specifications. There is very low rate of errors anyway. So are expensive USB cables really just cables engineered out of specifications? No idea..

[sabe]

Hi Raddy,

Are you positive the USB Audio has no error correction? Each data packet transmitted over a USB cable has a CRC checksum and any in-spec device should honestly be using the checksum to request for retransmit in case of errors.

[wwenze]

Originally Posted by sabe

Hi Raddy,

Are you positive the USB Audio has no error correction? Each data packet transmitted over a USB cable has a CRC checksum and any in-spec device should honestly be using the checksum to request for retransmit in case of errors.

The mode that USB audio uses do not request for retransmit.

(Nor does it actually check for errors)

BTW when I said USB isn't lossless, it doesn't mean it has lost packets either; you get dropped/lost packets when the devices realizes that the packet is errorneous and not good for use and hence request for another one. If an entire packet is gone/wrong then you'll hear a big sound definitely.

If the packet is errorneous because of a few wrong bits however, it will just cause a small change in the sound.

[Questor]

Just for argument's sake, I am using the benchmark dac-1 pre for my tests. This DAC is powered by its own, so less issue of 'corruption' or mistiming of clock via USB power. I believe my system is pretty transparent so any slight chance is perceivable.

Originally Posted by sabe

Signal delivered by USB cable is digital. If there was any loss, you will hear more than subtle differences in your audio. I will say this is a placebo effect. Paying more for USB cables is like paying more for a gold HDMI cable or something trippy like that.

FYI, I found the $10 cable to be worse than the free cable.. so I don't think this placebo example works.

I think for everything else digital such as spdif, optical, and to a lesser extent HDMI, it is recognised that there is indeed a difference.. I just haven't come across anyone discussing usb cable before.


sabe, to answer your 2nd post, and for some rough info for the rest from what I know - For audio data, real-time transfer is more important than occasionally missing data, hence most use the isochronous mode which does not allow for re-sending of packets.

To what I know, there are some rare players like wavelength that uses asynchronous mode to reduce such loss, but they are few and far in-between. This is better than spdif since it gets rid of clocking issues, but this comes with other issues as well.

Anyway, here is an old article about the issues of isochronous, but think it is still valid: 6moons audio reviews: Wavelength Audio Brick USB DAC

But that isn't really the intent of this discussion. It's more to see if you guys have indeed experienced the same thing as me, and any recommended options or things to avoid when choosing a usb cable for your usb dac. Thanks wwenze for the feedback!

[sabe]

Interesting, thanks for the insight guys.

[sin cruise]

to me - yep, there's some difference in sq
last time did an a/b with some members here using 3 different usb cable
stock, belden (i think - k_r help me here) and kimber
conclusion - kimber sound better

[tensor]

there's too much "magic" about USB cables. ZzzZzz
first of all, impedance matching is critical.
however if we are talking about short distance. eg: 1-2m
jitter and signal loss or error aint going to be a critical factor.
just get any regular usb cable that is of reasonable quality will do.

anyone has proper o'scope and function gen to test this objectively rather than thru' "feel" :p

[Questor]

Originally Posted by sin cruise

to me - yep, there's some difference in sq
last time did an a/b with some members here using 3 different usb cable
stock, belden (i think - k_r help me here) and kimber
conclusion - kimber sound better

Want to elaborate on the difference of the kimber cable? Am tempted to give it a try.