QED Reference USB

mini reviews
i use dac gustard x20pro, as well as ,neumann 310a studio monitor
speaker ,reveals everything in music, for weaknesses ,and other things.
uses laptop ,with ifi defendter, and ifi power
laptop power, on usb disabled
better treble and midrange
there are ,more micro ,detail in the sound.
more space in the sound
transient is very good
much better end supra standard cable
good cable for the price 150dollars 3 meters or 10foot
sorry ,my bad english ,google translate

QED Reference USB cable review
 
A-Micro B connection
 
Available lengths: 0.3, 0.6, 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0M.
 
Length tested: 0.3M
 
 

 
For the last year now I have owned a Chord Hugo and have been plodding along happy listening to my music with the stock cable supplied as the Hugo was a revelation to start with out of the box in terms of redefining my head-fi set up but in that year have been to a couple of Head-fi gigs one been the first London Canjam and heard how much difference a USB cable had to offer in the chain and been a 2 channel audio speaker set up kind of guy have had plenty of experience with different cables in my speaker system down the years from analogue to digital cables yet had not realized how much the USB would be just as important than any other cable I have plumbed into my Hi-Fi set up.
 
It was at these shows I decided yes I need a USB cable for my Hugo for sure but I am one usually going the whole nine yards and as I had the Hugo would aim for a £200 upwards cable but as life kept throwing other curve balls at me I had to keep putting off going for an expensive USB cable and thought I really do need one sooner rather than later so had to think of one that fell within a good budget with still somehow performing near as possible as say Sinatra swooning effortlessly in the La Ronde Supper Club at the Fontainebleau Hotel as I knew I would be keeping this USB cable for a long time to come due to me been on a flagship boutique cable austerity budget plan for foreseeable future.
 
I am lucky here and have to disclose I have a good friend and fellow head-fier had a cable for me to try out and as I needed a USB cable anyway and was long overdue did not hesitate to give it a prolonged try in the comfort of my own arm chair in nice quite surroundings.
 
I have already had experience of QED cables before and I have an Oppo BDP-105 with a set of QED reference analogue rca’s on the 5 channel out to my Tag Mclaren processors 5.1 bypass and a reference component cable for my Tag DVD32R to Pioneer plasma as it gives a very clear and natural picture and one thing I have always noticed is the build quality is very strong and robust with a nice finish to the plugs and outer cable cover which always look very durable. The QED Reference USB cable is no different with thick strong cabling which makes this very repellent against interference with its tank like shielding.
 
The first plus to this cable before even getting out of the box that they do this in a USB B micro connector which means for Chord Hugo owners like me you do not need to use the adaptor as currently there are not many manufacturers that are doing micro B USB on their cables so hats off to QED for actually recognising there is a market for a cable with this connector.
 
The QED cable comes in a nice big solid box for its size and has 24 carat gold plated plug connectors with Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) twisted pair of 7/0.2mm insulated with Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) for all you cable geeks out there which helps with the sonic purity and low signal loss.  It is then triple screened with aluminium Mylar wrap and an OFC shield braid for 100% electromagnetic screening coverage.
 

 
I am currently using a HP X360 Spectre WIN10 laptop using both WMP or Sony’s Media Go with both WAV & FLAC files going into a Chord Hugo with either a pair of Sony MDR-7520 Headphones with Whiplash Hybrid cable mod and a pair of JH16Pro’s and upon first launch music fed into my Hugo piped down the QED cable it is immediately apparent there is quite a discernible difference to the stock USB supplied with my Hugo and it feels & sounds like everything has suddenly come to life with more dynamics making the stock cable sound flat and lifeless.
 
The sound stage is more open and wider than previously with the stock cable with a good sense of stereo imaging I did not have before now really makes my Sony 7520’s open up and almost feel like a pair of open backs which is can be the real Achilles heel with my Sony headphones but the extra space and width is quite a pleasant experience and really helped listening to classical pieces or live music more which excel with that type of space. I think this is in part to this cable has good floor noise giving it a really black background to work on making instruments sound like they have plenty of space to operate in.
 
 At first though as impressive as the QED cable first sounded compared to my stock Hugo cable still sounded a bit muffled and congested in the mids with some of the information not feeling as if it is getting through as it should but a good 10-15 hours this cable seemed to settle down and open up more with the veil lifting off to “unveil” the mid retrieval section which is kingpin to any music listening to hear the devil in the detail but once it does it really comes together quite well with better clarity and definition with transitions between upper mids  through to lower mids more cohesive and easy to follow. I must admit when I first got this cable it did worry me sounding straight out of the box like it did and if it stayed like that I would off kept the stock cable!
 
The mid to low bass frequency’s is quite impressive on this cable and listening to Fleetwood Macs Oh Daddy remastered the mid bass sounds nice and tight yet retains that warmth of the recording as if hearing the vinyl version of it and one of the albums of the year for me Nothing But Thieves has a good clear strong driving mid bass with a solid impact and visceral bass extension I was not expecting which the Hugo which for some has been the only thing lacking.
 

 
Yet somehow the QED USB cable is able to transfer that from the Hugo and blends timing and slam of bass notes really well through this cable.  If you like bass then the QED has a really nice full bodied mid bass with a visceral low bass response and good resonation which is something I was not expecting from this cable.
 
This QED cable does not come across as a mid-centric cable at all, not that it is U shaped or anything but it is quite a upfront sound in general and has plenty of bass and treble attack which can make it sound more pronounced more both ends of the Frequency range but the mids are still present in the overall mix with a certain percentage of mid detail actually used wide field of the centre stage as well with the QED presentation of a large sound stage and combination of a quick responsive stereo imaging helps provide a well-timed and fluid listening experience with this QED cable.
 This becomes more apparent with vocal effects that use left & right channels for effect (like U2’s Raised by Wolves for example) makes for an interesting listen.
 
When I listened to rock music it is also at home dealing with the Chaotic side of rock music rocking the QED lends plenty of weight behind in a confident manner or even some heavy metal like Metallica’s self-titled album it never got muddled and always kept the detail coming through even with heavy going passages of songs were in full swing keeping a competent rhythmic quality throughout. 
Vocals are clear and crisp with no colouration, fuzziness or muffling from anyone singing it is present to the forefront of a song and is easy to listen and enjoy a vocalist different timbres and tones which come across very natural.
 
 I have also been impressed how good this cable reproduces strings on the guitar whether electric or acoustic which Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Daddy was a great example of this with acoustic and electric both inter-weaving each other during the song yet the tonal sound and detail to be heard from both was of a good quality.
 
Equally piano work had a good full bodied solid sounding key strokes to every key played whether it was Wes Khalifa “See You Again” track or Tori Amos “Crucify”.
It seems easier to hear the high frequency range more now because of this with the treble placating a stronger presence with more sharper and realistic tone with a nice shimmer to cymbals yet does not sound overly harsh in this region at any stage with any type of music which my ears like.
 
Only thing to note really that is a negative if there was any is the ergonomics of the cable where the design which lends to the potential of how this cable can sound at the same time is a bit of an Achilles heel this attention to detail to the cable shielding makes it stiff compared to other USB cables so does not have a lot of flexibility to it making it not so practical as it is not so flexible.
So if you intend on using this with a device next to you in bed or on the sofa could cause some issues.
 
This might be because I only had a 30cm length and might be better overcome with a longer length like the 1 Metre cable that can loop back on itself might help in this area.  If you just to intend using in on a desktop where it won’t exhibit any movement you will be just fine.  Other than that this does not detract from how good this cable can sound for the money and gives a full forward dynamic and punchy presentation yet sounds just clear and precise without any colouration to the signature which makes it good pairing for my Hugo as it keep true to the sound of the DAC more in this respect. 
 
  Just going back to the stock cable was a painful experience after this as it sounded flat, closed in lacking extra details to the musical notes the QED was capable of delivering.  I was starting to get accustomed to or taking for granted the QED sound already is made stark reminder to just keep the stock cable for that experience once in a blue moon what a jump this QED cable makes from the stock one.
 

 
Conclusion:
 
Overall I am really enjoying listening to this cable and what it is capable of as it has surprised me how good it is once it was run in a while to clear it’s lungs with some burn in time (it’s only been two weeks so may potentially only get better with time) and is only hampered by the strong engineered design which is its strength behind the SQ delivery is also ergonomically it’s weakness for flexibility of use.  It would be good to see them somehow keep those properties which makes this cable sound as it does but with the practical flexibility in use would cement this as perfect in every way at this price point as sound wise performs above the price tier it is set at. 
 
Retrospectively wish I had not waited so long for a USB cable upgrade now as it has transformed listening to my media player on the laptop now and also with my Hugo and ZX1 if I stay still enough for long enough but biggest surprise is how good this sounds in terms of cost and after listening to plenty of USB cables over last couple of years ranging from £100-500 mark this definitely punches above its weight in terms of the SQ it delivers for the price they are asking and after listening to this for a good two weeks now it out performs the stock USB cable by a country mile no question and will never look at USB cables in the same way again after this revelation that you don’t have to spend the earth to get a really good USB cable for your system. 

The first thing to disclose is that I was given this cable to review by another head-fi member.
 
The first thing that really grabs you when you see this cable is the build quality - the shielding, thickness of the cable and quality of the connectors is immediately obvious even through the well presented packaging.
 
When you take the cable out of the box it doesn't disappoint - it's fairly hefty, feels pretty weighty and is a very solid cable.  It feels like it will last for years and years!
 
I have the 30cm version and I am using it to connect a Chord Mojo to 2 different laptops, a Samsung S6 Edge (with OTG adapater) and a Sony NX100 (with WM Port - Hi Res adapter) and I find the length pretty much perfect.  None of those combinations is small enough to be pocketable for me so this goes in a bag and is brought out on my desk or the train table during the commute.
 
So putting that to one side - what are my overall thoughts on cables?  Since a blind listening that I did in my local hi-fi shop in the mid 90s where the sceptical shop assistant heard a large difference that he wasn't expecting between different interconnects I've been a believer in cables.  I had a similar experience with digital cables where I thought that all optical cables would be the same but found that there can be a difference there too (look at the compatibility comments on the Mojo thread if you want to see evidence of this for yourself).
 
However I wasn't expecting to find a big difference in the USB cable due to the fact that USB works on a high frequency anyway and data transfers quickly and accurately on it.  The first thing to note is that I didn't hear a big difference - I thought that it sounded slightly clearer and thought that I could reliably hear the difference but a couple of times I was actually listening to a different (high quality, short) cable when I was convinced it was the QED one.  However...  I did find that it was much better at shielding radio interference from my mobile phones than the other cable.
 
So what is my conclusion?

Well...  I am using it as THE cable for my Chord Mojo - the shielding and quality make it a cut above other cables that I have.  Would I personally have spent £59.99 on it?  Good question - probably not - but then again I am not looking to upgrade above my Oppo PM3 or Sennheiser HD600 headphones.  To me the listening environments that I use it in make smaller incremental games a waste of money in my world (the train and a noisy family home) but to someone chasing that last ounce of performance  - well that's your decision!!

In recent years audiophile USB cables have given rise to much debate and at times even outright aggression on various forums....... There are many who feel that the improvements apparently heard by using an upgraded USB cable are purely imaginary. The debate regarding 1’s and 0’s rages on and for many years it wasn’t something I felt inclined to explore in any detail. As the owner of a pc building business in the late 90’s I just went along with the logical view that data is data.

That was until I set up my first streaming system comprising Sonos into a Rega DAC about 5 years ago. I had already experimented with various speaker cables and interconnects and I recall concluding that after much testing I settled on a Rega Couple, totally convinced that it was not necessarily “better” but matched my system “better” and therefore sounded “better” to my ears than anything else I had tried. I remember there being a huge difference in characteristics between the Rega Couple and The Chord Company Cobra. I also recall some custom made silver cables that sounded harsh and totally unacceptable. Once again I found myself falling into the trap of listening to the equipment rather than the music, something I vowed to stop doing back in the 1980’s !!!
 
It was during this pursuit of perfection that I stumbled across the subject of jitter. There was something bugging me about the overall quality of the Sonos based system, a slight harshness, artificial, hard to describe characteristic, I could still remember the Pink Triangle based system I had in the 80’s and was striving to bridge the gap between analogue and digital.
I saw a secondhand Theta Digital Timebase Linque Conditioner advertised for £50, the answer to my prayers ?? Well not quite because the damn thing used to cut out and hum like mad when connected to the Sonos, a real piece of crap I thought but…..when it wasn’t humming it sounded fantastic. To try and nail down the issue I hooked it up to my LG Blu-Ray player and slapped a CD on, no hum, worked perfectly and I was absolutely gob smacked at the improvement but never did get the damn thing working with the Sonos. Well that was five years ago and that system is long gone and the extent of my current equipment comprises Oppo PM-3, Chord Mojo, Macbook Pro (occasionally LG G4 phone).
 
The extent of my recent tinkering is converting my Apple Lossless files to FLAC via Max, yes I do hear a difference, to me the FLAC’s are more detailed, weightier with more clarity, like a veil has been lifted, I’m not good at using audiophile speak, in fact a lot of it sounds like absolute tosh to me but I do know when I hear something in more detail with greater clarity, I can recognise space around instruments, differences in soundstage blah blah but beyond that is a place I’m not going to.
 
So having recently upgraded from the Oppo HA-2 to the Chord Mojo I finally started to engage in debate on Head-Fi, 99% of the time on the monster official Mojo thread. Initially I was posting about the lack of cables supplied with the Mojo. I was highly critical of the perceived tightness of Chord not to supply a basic set of cables, something that was supplied with the HA-2.

I like to think I’m fairly open minded and fair and this was not a subject I thought I would change my opinion on easily. As the thread progressed there was much debate about cables, many custom made short varieties of optical, cheap and cheerful OTG for phone users but not much about USB A to micro B, probably because that is the one cable that Chord did supply.
The supplied cable is very short and I found it frustrating so I grabbed one of my cheap charger cables lying around and started to use that with the Macbook, that’s when I had a slight inkling that there may be a difference between USB cables. Something was bugging me, the sound was good, even great but something wasn’t sitting 100% right so I did a little bit of testing between the short supplied cable and my longer, ultra thin charger cable and there was a difference but it was slight, very slight.
 
Out of the blue came an offer from another forum user to test and review a high quality cable designed to reduce jitter, here we go again I thought, had a little chuckle to myself and thought ok why not, despite having vowed for the 500^th odd time never to start listening to the equipment again !!!
 
The cable in question is the QED Reference USB A –micro B.
 
http://www.qed.co.uk/hdmi-and-digital/digital-data/reference-usb-a-b-micro.htm
 
First impressions, nice box, nice looking cable, the cynic in me thinking well they have to make the box look nice if they are going to charge £59.99 for a USB cable. On unpacking the first thing that hits you is the thickness of this thing, it’s like a small grass snake but far less flexible, more of that later.
 

 
 
 
Build quality is very high, it really is a quality product, now onto the testing.....
 
As tempting as it was to just hook it up and give it a try I resisted as I wanted to do this as impartially as I could. You see although i’ve never minded spending out on a quality mid range cable in the past I expect value for money, nothing winds me up more than overpriced, overhyped junk, not just with my own wallet in mind, I hate to see people ripped off.
 
The testing was all done with the PM3/Mojo/Macbook/FLAC via Vox  combination and all blind. It was then repeated with my partner doing the listening and her opinion mirrored mine despite suffering from serious tinnitus and having zero interest in hi-fi or anything audio / gadget related, in fact she’s quite happy with her £15 pair of Sony headphones and iTunes downloads.
 
So how does it sound ? Is it better than the stock cable ? Hell yes and by a large margin. The easiest way of describing it is that it’s similar to the improvement I heard when comparing the HA-2 to the Mojo, more detail & clarity, a lot of the tracks seem to come to life, now that confused me because the Mojo is so damned good out of the box with the stock cable, I was already hearing things I didn’t know were there, a cliché often used I know but it’s true !!. You aren’t going to get lot’s of hi-fi speak and terms out of me, I’m not going to go overboard and try and describe the sound in huge detail but the high end is where I feel the biggest improvement is, more sparkle without introducing brightness. To quote my partner "that one is much clearer (QED), the other one (stock cable) sounds like there's something stopping the detail coming through, like putting a cloth over the front of a speaker"

I would suggest you order one online and try it for yourself. I’m not a great lover of distance selling regulations in the UK as I think it’s a system that’s often abused by UK consumers who use it to audition gear but I’m confident you will hear an improvement and end up keeping it.
 
It’s not all great news though, there is one downside. The cable I have is 0.3M long, perfect for the Mojo/Macbook, I can sit with them on my lap, however I have a very wide armchair and boy do I need that space, this thing is very stiff, in some respects worryingly stiff in relation to putting strain on the USB ports of both devices. Maybe I’m being a bit picky here but you will see what I mean if you try one. On a desk with adequate room it’s not a problem but for casual listening on a laptop actually on your lap, it’s not very practical.
 
If you want more info about jitter and what it is here’s a link that I found useful a few years ago.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/jitter.htm
 
This review has been produced with the genuine intention of giving a 100% honest opinion. I don’t do BS, I don’t believe in fairies or werewolves but I do know what I hear and to my ears it’s shown a big improvement switching to this cable.
The last thing I would like to suggest is that if you do a blind test yourself do not do it by having someone swap the cables with you present in the room. The sheer thickness of it means you would probably hear the difference in how they would be connecting it up. I recognised this as a potential problem with the testing before I started, maybe a bit OTT but I wanted to make sure the test was accurate. I also used the same USB port on the Macbook so did not have two cables hanging out of it just in case there was a difference between the ports. I have also tested it versus the optical out on the Macbook and USB wins hands down with the QED and the stock USB cable just edges out the optical too, guess what I’ll be trying next, yes a different optical cable !!!!!