No, that's not how USB works.
Let's separate data (which is digital) and signal (which is analogue).
The source sends an analogue waveform in which digital data is encoded.
This waveform passes through the cable and at the sink end an analogue circuit decides if it has a "transition", that is, if a lower Level changed to a higher level or a higher to a lower and the "decision circuit" works on absolute values.
All of this works best if the "edges" are clear (square waves). At 480Mbps square waves become truncated triangles (actually at much lower frequencies).
We get something called an "eye pattern" because it kinda looks like the eye of Ra.
The more "open" the eye, the easier the detection of 0 or 1.
It is of course possible to make circuits detect logic levels reliably under difficult conditions and you get some that, while passing USB Standard Compliance Testing do terrible in the real world.
This problem is analogue, not digital. The usual USB hardware on CPU chips (programmed to become USB to audio bridges) are functional. Not much more.
When you take a hub or repeater, it will only detect 0 or 1 and pass that on. Usually there is not intelligence there, so it doesn't care if the data is right or not. It just repeats what it gets.
As it so happens, Hub Chip makers tend to make better USB analogue Hardware than CPU Chip makers.
So back to our USB gizmo (in series). Let's take my earlier 25m multiple USB Repeater active USB cable.
After the first 5m cable (let's use a cheap one) the signal is already at the limits of us standards.
Or beyond, if the cable was made cheaply in ch!na or by some artisan in a garage workshop using nine nines pure silver in Teflon sleeving hand twisted and without sound quality damaging screen.
If we choose a "good" hub / repeater / receiver chip, it will reliable detect the data embedded in a badly degraded signal (poor signal integrity but as system high data integrity). And it will pass this signal into the next cable. And so on.
Note, nothing tries to actually make sense of the signal or data, all it does is to repeat (and route one to many ports) the received signal.
If we have a CPU Chip made by the lowest bidder fab in mainland china (who perhaps generously provide the USB IP for free) we may have problems even with signals that are just barely beyond standard (good or adequate signal integrity but due to poor chip design poor data integrity).
If we have such a CPU chip as downstream USB device (all the common ones are like this) then given all else in USB audio Class (2) we have high risk problems of data integrity problems.
Here, a USB gizmo can help by re-producing a clean, wide open eye eye pattern with minimal calling in-between to make it worth again.
And daisy-chainging 5 x 5m super cheap cabled made in ch!na or by some artisan in a garage workshop using nine nines pure silver in Teflon sleeving hand twisted and without sound quality damaging screen with 5 repeaters will make sure that at the input pons of our USB 2 AUDIO bridge IC the eye pattern is near perfect, even if after every 5m it was so bad with just source cable and sink you would already get dropouts.
I know that doesn't quite address your question but hopefully answers to perfectly reasonable thinking behind it.
Thor
