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My experience with USB cables...

Hi guys,

Recently Stevii has been leaving a lot of topics on USB cables. I (perhaps foolishly) responded with my opinion on the matter which obviously many here disagreed with... The opinion that USB cables (at least of adequate quality) do not matter.

Realize guys that just because someone like me doesn't post here much (life's busy folks!) doesn't make me a "side line perpetual skeptic" to use someone's phrase on this matter. I actually really enjoy the boards here and will check in weekly to see what's new. Over the years, I have really enjoyed picking up tips and hints here.

Here's some background on me. I've enjoyed audiophilia over the last 20 years. I'm now about 40, have good hearing as best I can tell, enjoy live music weekly, and am financially healthy ($1800 USB cables not a problem, even wife wouldn't care). In the early days, I loved the tweaking in the hobby - TICE clocks, CD demagnetizers, 'greening' the edges of CD's, freezing CD's, Peter Belt stickies (remember those?!), spent days on homebrew interconnects & speaker wires. In the early 2000's, I enjoyed the hi-def stuff with the Sony SCD-1 when it came out, and still to this day continue collecting SACD's. However since 2004, I have converted all my music to the music server (an older Core 2 Q6600 computer in my basement) and spin disks much less.

This is where my adventure with USB cables start. As many know, we can digitally rip SACD's now with a hacked PS3. About 5 or 6 months ago I started backing up my SACD collection and converting them to 24/88 FLAC's to use on my main system (Logitech Transporter). Since I was tied to the computer for much of this, I started using my Benchmark DAC1 USB to monitor the conversions - here's the equipment:

Homebrew AMD X6 --> [USB cable] --> Benchmark DAC1 USB --> headphone output

Headphones: AudioTechnica ATH AD700 (wonderful comfort), ATH-M50 (rocking bass!)

Since I was aware of the growing market for USB cables, I "upgraded" the cheapo thin pack-in Sony USB cable I first used (ferrite choke on each end though) with some Belkin $25 1m cable I had around. Didn't notice any difference. I then went to my local retailer (WireWorld reseller) and borrowed their 1m Ultraviolet for 2 weeks. Again, noticed no difference, the music sounded good. Finally got a hold of the higher end Silver Starlight 1m (~$300) to try for 1 week... Guess what... If there was a difference in sound quality, IMO it wasn't worth the effort!

While I had the Silver Starlight, I converted Miles' "Kind Of Blue", The Police's "Every Breath You Take: The Classics", and Monk's "Straight No Chaser" SACD's to 24/88 while listening to various other 16/44 music during that week. I'm playing "So What" right now as I type this and it's sounding just as good on the Belkin as when I borrowed the Starlight.

Could an $1800 USB cable make a difference? Possible... But it was also possible that one of Peter Belt's stickers changed the quantum nature of music (some folks may still believe this). As I type this today though, I have no reason to believe logically or by experience with wires 10x the price differential or with material differences (Starlight I think has some silver + their helix geometry) to justify the extra expense purely from a sound quality perspective.

[Please note that the WireWorld cables were of excellent workmanship and esthetics so please do not take this as a kock against the product. I actually have a couple of their interconnects.]

Like in the professional scientific world, research journals have a tendency to show publication bias where only the positive studies cause a stir and get to make it to print. The 'negative' studies just don't get spoken of. So too on message boards like this I think. For the newbies, do enjoy the wonderful world of audio and experiment with the amazing hardware choices out there but also remember that there are folks (as I noted, probably many who will not post something at the Asylum) who love this hobby with a passion but with possibly very different points of view - still enjoying the music :-).

Humbly yours,
Archimago

Addendum:
@ chopper87@aol.com:
Please send me the plans to your USB cable: psydoc2020@yahoo.com
I'm certainly open to giving it a try when I can and promise to come back and report if my mind is changed.


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Archimago's Musings: A 'more objective' audiophile blog.


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Topic - My experience with USB cables... - Archimago 17:18:09 10/2/11 (44)

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