[Donnyhifi]

Hi Kr0gg,
 
I ended up getting the 2m Wireworld Starlight, they don't stock at the moment and I will be picking it up next week.

 
The other Japanese brand that I tried was SAEC, I preferred the Starlight because of the slightly smoother highs but they were very close, both are a step up from the Furutech brand in both price and performance.

 

[Donnyhifi]

Quote:

if you're in japan, you have access to a great selection of usb cables
 
try out acoustic revive as well (the 2 usb to 1 usb connector, separating power and data). super detailed but doesnt have the warmth.
i settled on oyaide S+ as the best blend of midrange and detail (less than acoustic revive).
 
all comes down to component matching in the end

 
Thanks! I will try and check it out!
 
I totally agree its more about component matching once you get in the better quality cables.
 
 

 

[endless402]

Quote:

 
Thanks! I will try and check it out!
 
I totally agree its more about component matching once you get in the better quality cables.
 
 

yup. i usually get my cables from audiounion in japan. that and amazon.co.jp haha. sometimes audiounion has used usb cables. yodobashi aikba also has a large selection and a dedicated area for PC audio / headphones
 

 

[Hennyo]

Hey Donnyfi
Same here. My experience has been identical to your whole first post. I ended up picking the Audioquest Coffee, it's uglier than the other usb's.. but it sounds better on my setup.
 
Food for thought.
 
Hey endless,
I agree, much of it is system dependent. Everything must be matched.
 

 

[uelover]

@endless402: Oyaide S+ is a good cable =)  Currently I do not use the power line inside my USB cable so I hope that I will be on the safe side =)
 
@donnyhifi: You can ask the guy to let you audition the power cord also. Not harm. =)
 

 

[drez]

Quote:

Thanks! I will try and check it out!
 
I totally agree its more about component matching once you get in the better quality cables.

Erm ok...  Doesn't seem many people understand digital audio here.  A good digital cable should have no effect on tone or component matching at all (unless your transport and/or computer both have some unorthodox USB sockets...)  If two digital cables sound different, one of them has distortion and is faulty.  A digital cable is either correct in transmitting its digital signal, and does so with low jitter, or it isn't.  Ideally the sockets at both ends should achieve a constant impedance with the cable and connectors.
 
Digital audio IS NOT analogue audio.  You may wish to change the tone of your system with ANALOGUE interconnects, but if you do this with digital interconnects you are likely going to make your system worse and pay more for the privilege.
 
Using my essence ST as a transport results in a warm and smooth sound which muddies the details (a little) - this is probably not ideal.  Using my DI in adaptive has a has dropouts.  Using DI with upsampling USB has a non-harsh dynamic, neutral and detailed sound with no dropouts.  This is how my NFB-10ES should sound - so this tells me the transport is doing its job in producing a clean and jitter free signal.  Point is, one of these is producing the most coherent and jitter free signal, and the others aren't.
 
Same goes for digital cables - they should not change the sound of your system - if they do they are distorting the signal and degrading the performance of your system.  Digital audio is not magic or alchemy, your digital components are (hopefully) not designed by wizards or alchemists (maybe unless it has tubes, but even in this case the USB receiver chip is designed by engineers).  

 

[endless402]

in theory they shouldnt. i didnt believe it either but for some reason it does to my ears. even between my cardas lighting 15 coax vs my stereovox xv2 bnc (both of which i dont use anymore as my connection is usb only). my only recommendation is to try it out on your system. if it does something that you like, good, if it doesnt, no need to buy cables. free trials are best     also expensive cables doesnt mean a better sound, it's all tradeoffs between different things. i find more expensive cables to be more detailed but can be quite cold sounding and prefer less resolving stuff. my previous equipment was a high resolution system (all top of the line simaudio equipment) and now i've gone the other route into something warmer and sweeter (accuphase)
 
 
wait till you get into footers and other tweaks (harmonix footers)...makes no sense whatsoever but changed the sound on my system (some were better and some were worse...all tradeoffs)
 
 
it's a hobby in the end. i've been through quite a few cables and settled on a harmonix setup as it best complemented my components (seen in my sig).
 
 

 

[kr0gg]

 
Quote:

Erm ok...  Doesn't seem many people understand digital audio here.  A good digital cable should have no effect on tone or component matching at all (unless your transport and/or computer both have some unorthodox USB sockets...)  If two digital cables sound different, one of them has distortion and is faulty.  A digital cable is either correct in transmitting its digital signal, and does so with low jitter, or it isn't.  Ideally the sockets at both ends should achieve a constant impedance with the cable and connectors.
 
Digital audio IS NOT analogue audio.  You may wish to change the tone of your system with ANALOGUE interconnects, but if you do this with digital interconnects you are likely going to make your system worse and pay more for the privilege.
 
Using my essence ST as a transport results in a warm and smooth sound which muddies the details (a little) - this is probably not ideal.  Using my DI in synchronous has a has a harsh sound with dropouts - there is clearly a problem with the signal and jitter - this is incorrect and bad.  Using DI in asynchronous USB has a non-harsh dynamic, neutral and detailed sound with no dropouts - this is correct and good.  This is how my NFB-10ES should sound - so this tells me the transport is doing its job in producing a clean and jitter free signal.  Point is one of these is producing the most coherent and jitter free signal, and the others aren't.  The only possible differences are caused by distortion (as far as I know), and one of these must have the lowest.
 
Same goes for digital cables - they should not change the sound of your system - if they do they are distorting the signal and degrading the performance of your system.  Digital audio is not magic or alchemy, your digital components are (hopefully) not designed by wizards or alchemists (maybe unless it has tubes, but even in this case the USB receiver chip is designed by engineers).  

how do you use DI in async USB?
Kingwa reported that is a sync device. Its DSP works async, but this has nothing to do with PC-USB connection, only about data transmittion inside the DI.

 

[uelover]

Quote:

 
how do you use DI in async USB?
Kingwa reported that is a sync device. Its DSP works async, but this has nothing to do with PC-USB connection, only about data transmittion inside the DI.

He got mixed up in all the technical jargons without realizing that DI is not an async USB device lol.

 

[drez]

Quote:

 


how do you use DI in async USB?
Kingwa reported that is a sync device. Its DSP works async, but this has nothing to do with PC-USB connection, only about data transmittion inside the DI.

you are quite right it is not async USB chip.  I can see how my post could have been misinterpreted.  Thanks for the polite correction unlike some people who it would seem have nothing better to contribute at this point.

 
My point is some people might like to introduce distortion into their system with the digital interconnects but to me this just seems the wrong way of doing things.  And as was mentioned, using more expensive digital cables to add flavors of distortion just seem whacky.  
 
BUT anyway I don't see how that is important to my argument about whether digital interconnects are the right place to introduce distortion.
 

 

[Currawong]

It would be interesting to see the shape of the waveform through an oscilloscope using the different cables. I do know it looks quite distorted through optical compared to 75 Ohm S/PDIF and the reflections along a cable can be seen in the waveform if you introduce, say, a 50 Ohm adaptor.

 

[DaBomb77766]

I don't understand how people think that distortions in a cable can actually affect the waveform of a digital bitstream.  It may affect it, but not in a consistent way...it'll just be totally random with random errors everywhere.  It won't just modify one part of the signature and that's it.  That's physically impossible given how a digital bitstream works (just a stream of 1s and 0s, not an analog waveform of extremely high resolution and a range of amplitudes.  In a digital bitstream there are only two different variations of the signal - 1 or 0).

 

[drez]

I know it doesn't seem to make sense - but then neither does the effects of transports and there is definite difference between these.  Could just be effect of distortion from jitter?  AFAIK distortion doesn't always appear as noise or treble harshness.

 

[Hennyo]

Seems to me like everybody who's tried it firstly: agrees that they should'nt make a difference..... but then they find...
 
THEY DO make a difference! ahahahahahhaha
 
We all want to get to the bottom of this, but this sheer thing does make me giggle a-bit.

 

[Hennyo]

Quote:

in theory they shouldnt. i didnt believe it either but for some reason it does to my ears. even between my cardas lighting 15 coax vs my stereovox xv2 bnc (both of which i dont use anymore as my connection is usb only). my only recommendation is to try it out on your system. if it does something that you like, good, if it doesnt, no need to buy cables. free trials are best     also expensive cables doesnt mean a better sound, it's all tradeoffs between different things. i find more expensive cables to be more detailed but can be quite cold sounding and prefer less resolving stuff. my previous equipment was a high resolution system (all top of the line simaudio equipment) and now i've gone the other route into something warmer and sweeter (accuphase)
 
 
wait till you get into footers and other tweaks (harmonix footers)...makes no sense whatsoever but changed the sound on my system (some were better and some were worse...all tradeoffs)
 
 
it's a hobby in the end. i've been through quite a few cables and settled on a harmonix setup as it best complemented my components (seen in my sig).
 
 

This. golden.