Wireworld Ultraviolet USB competition

Hey techenvy,

I've read about a few USB cables comparable to the Wireworld Ultraviolet USB but I don't recall the other brands specifically (I know Chris Connaker at Computer Audiophile endorses the Kimber which may be less expensive but I'm not sure).

Regarding cable length, even being hifi, like the Ultraviolet, shorter will be better. Not so short that you have no play.. but just long enough to "make the connection". Of course this depends on your equipment and preferences but in my experience using a modest comparison rig I found discernible differences in the output based on length. I listened with a generic USB cable (6 foot), Ultraviolet USB (0.5, 1 and 2 meter) and also Starlight USB (0.5 and 2 meter).

In my experience, the shortest lengths produced better audio (clearer, nearer, cleaner).

I hope this helps.

Cable Chris

I sold David's cables for many years before I got smart and founded a company in a different field which actually makes me money (selling high end gear is a labor of love 'cause you certainly don't make a lot of $$!). I always found his Wireworld cables to be very honest and had a zero defect rate in literally thousands of pairs I sold. I still use Eclipse 5 balanced cables in my big system. They are also a very nice group of people to deal with. Hard to go wrong with Wireworld.

Hi can anyone explain how a cable such as Ultraviolet can improve the sound?  I've heard good cables are suppose to feed power into the dac more stably. But what could I expect from it.. the ability to give more details in music or improve soundstage?

thanks.

hey xtbk9999,

I don't know the methods used but I do know Wireworld engineers the cable design so that the squarewave stays "sharper" and rounds off less than conventional cable designs. Realistically, the differences you can expect with a Wireworld USB Audio cable are night and day.

When I did the generic USB, Ultraviolet & Starlight USB Audio cable comparisons the improvements were dramatic in the effect that the better cables allowed far more detail like instead of just hearing the notes of the guitar I could actually hear the fingering and plucking of the guitar (Beatles, i forget which song). In addition to that kind of detail the overall sound becomes more open opposed to sounding restrained or coming out of a box. My eleven year old son remarked that the generic cable sounded like a radio station and the Starlight sounded like "CD" in comparison.

I don't know anything about power feeds and such. I only know what I heard and it didn't require any effort to hear the overall differences between cables however it was also interesting to note the nuances of the music from one listen to another.

Cheers

In theory, anything digital works, or dosen't. Packet loss might show itself as distortion, or things not working, but the entire point of digital over analogue is that it works the same no matter what your gear is, as long as its not broken, and within spec.

While digital signals are 1s and 0s in theory, practially signals are never zero strength - its weaker and stronger, and pretty much never square - and your devices are designed to work around that non squareness... so.. i'm not convinced, from a purely intellectual level that USB cables will make a drastic difference - which from your description seems to be more the difference, to me between mp3 320kbps and Flac.

Experience trumps theory every time, and even then, there is much more to be learned.

Question everything. Don't just take anyones word for it. Who knows what you'll find out for yourself?

All else aside, Happy Listening!