[ZappaMan]

Yea, I can see that happening.

In the spare room/office/server room that I am in at the moment, I have optical coming from my soundcard to hugo2, then I have optical coming from the tv on the wall.

Both cannot connect to hugo at the same time. Whichever one is not connected, I always replace the cap back on it for the reasons you state.

The optical cables I use are from Kabel Direkt, they are not expensive and were purchased from Amazon. The USB cables I use, although cheap, they have excellent build quality and shielding. I did post them before, but I will link to them again and to be honest, these really are excellent quality cables.

When I bought my first two, I was so impressed I decided to buy more for a “just incase” moment.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Volutz-Bra...ie=UTF8&qid=1527540267&sr=1-4&keywords=Volutz

Not much impresses me nowadays, but these did and I would recommend these to anyone.

As gullible as I am - I also bought your recommended usb cables ....so they better be good especially as they cost £6 for 2!

 

[Amberlamps]

As gullible as I am - I also bought your recommended usb cables ....so they better be good especially as they cost £6 for 2!

They are good.

The first two I got were 3.3ft, the other two were 6ft or thereabouts.

They come in a box and also have a velcro cable tidy/tie at one end.

I buy a crazy amount of junk from Amazon and I only came across those in march of this year, possibly late february, they were bought specifically for H2.

I really do like these, they have a fancy nylon braided design on the outside and the pics on the page I link to, there is a cutout of how the cable is made up, but I cannot spraken de deutsch or sveedish or whatever the language it is ?

For the price, I really was surprised, all the others that I have bought from amazon, especially for charging iphones or ipads, they last a year if I am lucky.

I am sure you will like these ZM

 

[flyte3333]

f you had usb and optical both connected at the same time so you could go between them isn’t the test flawed because any noise on on the usb will get into the H2 even when listening to the optical.

Just a thought.

Not flawed if the USB source is not plugged into mains power (like a laptop or mobile or DAP source running on battery) when switching back and forth. In this case both are fully isolated from mains power - no leakage loops at play, no RF getting into the DAC - assuming headphones, not connected to an amp.

Even running Hugo2 on battery would (theoretically) should be enough to use a mains powered USB source for comparison with TOSlink. Leakage currents would have no 'loop' to go through, so again, no RF getting into the DAC.

 

[DrSeven]

quick question: what settings are you using on the windows device sound settings thingy? it goes up to 32 bit and god knows how many Hertz but does it make any sense to set more than 32 bit 44.1kHz?
Or do these settings even matter when foobar uses asio for the hugo 2?

 

[flyte3333]

Or do these settings even matter when foobar uses asio for the hugo 2?

Don't worry about it when using ASIO. ASIO is essentially always 'exclusive mode'.

 

[DrSeven]

Don't worry about it when using ASIO. ASIO is essentially always 'exclusive mode'.

Thanks my friend! Then I'm just going to ignore these ettings all together!

 

[flyte3333]

Thanks my friend! Then I'm just going to ignore these ettings all together!

I'm sure you know but just for completeness, foobar's own settings will still matter of course. But when using ASIO with foobar, you don't have to worry about Window's general settings and any other apps audio interfering with playback.

 

[DrSeven]

I'm sure you know but just for completeness, foobar's own settings will still matter of course. But when using ASIO with foobar, you don't have to worry about Window's general settings and any other apps audio interfering with playback.

Yeah but it's always nice to have certainty plus it might be interesting for others as well. So thanks again!

 

[musickid]

What's the optimal length for usb/optical cables (1m,1.5m, as short as poss.?) and can anyone recommend a good standard certified usb cable A-B.

 

[Whazzzup]

According to the Nordost rep I had checking my system, 1 m minimum not short as possible..... Sarum array USB at 2000 $ I hear is nice

 

[musickid]

Not nice for me....a high quality usb certified 2.0 cable is better for me.

 

[natemact]

According to the Nordost rep I had checking my system, 1 m minimum not short as possible..... Sarum array USB at 2000 $ I hear is nice

I'm very surpirsed Bruno would say that. Assuming Bruno here, correct? I know Bruno well and this doesn't sound like him. Although due to Nordost's "mechanical tuning" of their cables he's definitely used to the statement, longer is better! Are you sure he wasn't speaking purely to S/PDIF cables? Signal reflection is the culprit here and this can only occur when using S/PDIF cables.

It has to do with the rise time of the signal, the propagation time of the cable which is dependent on length, and reflections of the signal, all of which create jitter. With the typical rise time of a digital signal (example is the transition from a 0 to a 1) being slower than the propagation time of the cable, any reflections caused by not having a perfect 75 ohm termination at the sender and receiver of the digital signal will cause a reflection to superimpose a voltage onto the original 0 to 1 transition which will cause a timing error in the sample (jitter). A cable that is 1.5 meters or longer has enough propagation time to prevent the refection from affecting the original sample BUT this is extremely gear dependent and subject to a transmission line impedance.

There's a white paper written by Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio on the subject if interested https://positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm
This has been verified by double-blind testing at Canadian hi-fi magazine as well.

What's the optimal length for usb/optical cables (1m,1.5m, as short as poss.?) and can anyone recommend a good standard certified usb cable A-B.

Shortest USB is best - though I'm sure others may have their say. There's a ton of info at your fingertips on this subject. Just use your head, do your research and you'll come out on the right side. Depending on your digital front-end, transducers and cable quality you may not even hear a difference between lengths though, so this isn't a universal truth. If using a computer as a source, don't even worry about length. Worry more about using anything else as a source.

With extremely well respected short-length USB cables out there like the Curious USB Hugo Link and Sonore's USB adapter, off the top of my head - there's many more - it's hard to believe that shorter = compromised SQ, in fact it's the exact opposite when dealing with the high-quality variety : )

 

[Whazzzup]

No it was USB and yes I wasn’t mentioning names but Bruno was over one day for my antipodes and stated such. That 3’ Was preferred, over half a meter. Now other than sharing such i have no thoughts on the matter. He quoted this or that but I wasn’t paying attention.

 

[flyte3333]

any reflections caused by not having a perfect 75 ohm termination at the sender and receiver of the digital signal will cause a reflection to superimpose a voltage onto the original 0 to 1 transition which will cause a timing error in the sample (jitter)

I could be wrong but this applies to digital coax (RCA or BNC) but the question was about TOSlink. Shortest is best for optical.

With extremely well respected short-length USB cables out there like the Curious USB Hugo Link and Sonore's USB adapter

I could be wrong but the question was about High Speed certified USB cables and neither of these are.

Supra USB 2.0 cables are High Speed certified for up to 15m... Not a trivial thing... But I would still keep it as short as practicably possible for your system. Anything < 2m should be fine I would imagine.

http://www.jenving.com/products/view/usb-2.0-a-b-1001908381

 

[natemact]

I could be wrong but this applies to digital coax (RCA or BNC) but the question was about TOSlink. Shortest is best for optical.

True of AES/EBU as well, just not to the same degree. I saw USB in there too and tbh I don't have much experience with optical lengths or with optical in general...although when I was considering going a H2 I would've tried out optical via an old MacBook Pro before going Eitr or NAA route.

I had a .5M Lifatec years ago that I used with a Mytek Stereo 96 ADC to rip my vinyl and had no sq issues - I tried a $5 Amazon plastic one first thinking "it's all the same" and wasn't impressed with the rip quality. Bought the Lifatec and voila, it sounded like music again. Shortest should be best with optical, but like I said no experience and no guessing here.

I could be wrong but the question was about High Speed certified USB cables and neither of these are.

Nope wasn't about that. Are you claiming that these are Full Speed 12 Mbit/s 2.0 USB cables. That would be news to me : )

Supra USB 2.0 cables are High Speed certified for up to 15m

Sure, but can they push 5V 15M? Even if your DAC just needs the handshake, I'd be wary. It's widely regarded that USB cables should not exceed 5M if they want to stay passive. You'll see many cable manufacturers cap off at 5 or not even to bother with such lengths. Coincidentally, the longest I knew of was Nordost with a select bunch of theirs topping out at 7M.