I wasn't going to post about it anymore (boring topic), but I eventually decided that I didn't like the AudioQuest cable and returned it today. It definitely sounds brighter to me than the PYST USB cable. With some of my more poorly recorded music, it took on a brittle quality that I hated.
Blows my mind that a digital cable can sound different.
Me too. I mean, I wasnāt totally against the idea either. After all, although it is a digital cable the signal through it still relies on voltage levels. The voltages in turn are dependent on physics, and physics aināt digital..
It is also important to remember that audio over USB is a real-time protocol with no room for error detection, error correction, or resending of bad packets. The DAC is completely subject to what pops out the other end of the cable, whatever it is, and has to deal with it, as is. A resend would most probably result in an immediate and likely apparent stutter or glitch in the sound, anyway.
That is unlike communication with other USB devices like printers and hard disks, which can detect bad data transmission and have it resent until it comes through correctly.
I think this might be the most common reason why people dismiss the thought of digital cables possibly making a difference, because, well, theyāre all just digital anyway, and if it works well with the printer it should work just as well with the DAC. And hey, that is what I thought too. Until..
Ok, rewinding a bit in time. I was using a generic printer cable for a long time (albeit a āHQā one, shielded and gold plated with ferrite cores on the ends), perfectly happy with it. When it broke I got a PYST. It worked well, didnāt think much of it and didnāt really listen for any differences in sound. Then I moved my equipment and the PYST was a bit short and too stiff to work well so I looked for a longer more easy to route cable still of good quality. So I tried an entry level Audio Quest one (the Pearl). This time I thought Iād listen carefully if I could hear any difference between them, and it turned out that I could, and to me the Pearl sounded better (not night and day of course, far from it, but a little more āclearā and āopenā).
And, really, why not? If everything else can make a difference, the amp, the tube, the DAC, the source.. why not the cables that connect them all?