[etalon90]

HI all
 
I recently bought a audiophile usb cable (audioquest coffee) to plug between my laptop and my soundcard. (modified D100 and HE-6 can)
 
the improvement is substansial. I only had the cheap generic usb cable before.
 
Since my songs are all loaded on a USB external hard drive, I wonder if it could make sense to change that usb cable too.
 
Anybody tried that.
Did it improve anything or Foobar buffer just take care of business in that case?
 
thanks

 

[SteveM324]

Quote:

HI all
 
I recently bought a audiophile usb cable (audioquest coffee) to plug between my laptop and my soundcard. (modified D100 and HE-6 can)
 
the improvement is substansial. I only had the cheap generic usb cable before.
 
Since my songs are all loaded on a USB external hard drive, I wonder if it could make sense to change that usb cable too.
 
Anybody tried that.
Did it improve anything or Foobar buffer just take care of business in that case.
 
thanks

If I recall correctly, I saw a reply to the same question on another forum from Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio and what he said was that the critical connection is between your computer and the DAC because of jitter timing errors.  I think his opinion was don't waste your money on the connection between your external hard drive and computer.

 

[etalon90]

Thanks you Steeve
 
You just saved me $100...
 
Martin
 

 

[goodolcheez]

^ That is correct.  Just concentrate on the usb cable that connects from your PC to the DAC.
 
Are you using a set of headphone?   If you are using speakers, you'll need nice cables going from DAC to the speakers too.

 

[etalon90]

Update
 
I did a diy USB cable made of 99.9% silver core and teflon sleeve. (0.50" diameter)
 from left over DIY interconnect project (which I can't recommend enough).
 
feeding my dac, my silver usb sound way better than my audioquest cable 
 
 
Then being left with the audioquest cable, I tried to replace the stock cable from the external hard drive to my laptop.
The difference is audible. Not great but still audible.
 
Switching the cable between the dac and laptop provide the most audible improvement but the laptop-hard drive connection is still audible.
 
Subjectively, I would say 50% less audible but 50% improvement is still improvement.
 
 
I would urge anybody with a cheap cable (hared drive- laptop) to upgrade from the $1 generic cable to something at least decent.
 
 
Martin

 

[scootermafia]

I would recommend shielding the data pairs in the very least, making a twisted pair for the two data wires (pin 2, 3) and then keeping the power wires (1, 4) as a straight, non twisted pair - and also to be sure to use the shield to connect the shells of the USB cable together (so that there's a connection between the metal tips of each end's USB plug).  Not having the ends grounded together can damage some DACs.