Hello, long time forum lurker here, decided to break the ice and make my first post.
In the past I've owned Mojo, Hugo 2 and DAVE, now recently got Qutest. I'm very happy with it, but was wondering on what would be the best input, USB or Optical. I see most prefer optical and maybe someone has experience with more expensive USB cables. I have a Audioquest Diamond USB from DAVE days and comparing it with the optical cable from Hugo 2 there is no contest really. Sure optical sounds darker, but the magic from the music is gone. With the AQ cable you can 'feel' the music, its like you are there, everything is more tangible, with no hint of harshness or digital glare. So the question is will a better optical cable surpass the AQ USB? Was thinking about Audioquest Diamond Optical, has anyone tried it against other glass optical? With Hugo 2 I've tried a glass cable and it was so much worse then stock optical, with a lot of harshness added, no clue how that's even possible.
Also I see many prefer to power the Qutest with a battery. I guess it depends, but for me doing that was so much worse then stock psu. It sounded so much brighter, really couldn't even listen more then 10 minutes. Someone here in this thread said that batteries would be worse since they are made to charge our devices not power high end audio gear and will introduce more noise, I guess he was on to something. For me Qutest sounds best now directly powered from PC's USB 3.0 port.