[Thomasl]

I've tried many ways to 'purify' the usb data.
Regen, Curious cable, Intona, Wireworld platium etc...

Some of them worked, but heavily reduced the dynamic. (I guess high dynamic is sort of 'fluctuation' that are filtered.)
Some of them just don't work at all.

It bothered me a lot, until I thought that only light may be naturally free of noise with no other solutions...

Yes, I switched to SPDIF. The most expensive one on Amazon is just $20. Hundred times less than what I've spent.

I can't be happier with the sound, bass is fuller, background is darker, oh it's not dark, it's vancuumed emptiness of nothing.

I know some sayings like SPDIF combines clock and data info all together blah blah. I think DAC nowadays can perfectly handle it. (by listening to it, more than reading about it.)

With SPDIF, the sound is exactly what it meant to be. Say nearly 100% transfer rate, where usb is at most at 60%.

Thanks god that cable manufacturers never tried to produce an hifi SPDIF cable (or I can't prevent myself from buying one as I was scared by the cheap price tag). Maybe they just can't, light is naturally transferred at highest performance. You can't make light transfer 'better'.

 

[Logistics]

I'm happy to hear this worked out for you! Often times, the only realistic way to clean up the USB subsection is by affording large attention to your motherboard and power-supply. The USB controller is an integrated circuit, which suffers from all the same problems as every other IC on the motherboard, dirty power. Upgrading a more basic board with low-impedance, electrolytic capacitors or even polymers can help straighten things out. Of course, this sort of upgrade should go hand-in-hand with either a top-of-the-line power-supply or by upgrading the capacitors within your current power-supply as well! It doesn't matter how exotic your USB cable is; it won't clarify a system suffering from cheap capacitors and sketchy power-delivery.

Actually, there are some ridiculously priced "boutique" optical SPDIF cables, but I recall an article where a researching user found that exotic cables didn't sound good on lower-end hardware, and lower-end cables didn't sound good on boutique hardware--it became more of a process of properly matching hardware, while price of said hardware was irrelevant.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Thanks god that cable manufacturers never tried to produce an hifi SPDIF cable (or I can't prevent myself from buying one as I was scared by the cheap price tag). Maybe they just can't, light is naturally transferred at highest performance. You can't make light transfer 'better'.

http://www.vandenhul.com/products/cables/audio-video/digital

https://www.audioquest.com/cables/digital-cables/digital-coax

https://www.audioquest.com/cables/digital-cables/optical-toslink

https://www.thecableco.com/cables/digital-cables/digital-spdif.html

https://www.thecableco.com/cables/digital-cables/digital-optical-toslink-or-st.html

 

[senzen]

I had the same epiphany when I went from PC (Mac) audio to a receiver via SPDIF, it was like someone unplugged wax from my ears. I then went with an external DAC (Meridian Explorer) to... An old analog NAD receiver and small Q Acoustics 2020i, for a small room... How the !!! can it sound so good? I'm missing just a little more bass, but the setup was $150 for the DAC, $100 for the receiver, $100 for the speakers (ok the shipping was more)... So not hobo-fi but certainy very cheap. Crisp, detailed sound for half what people spend on a phone.

 

[Dawnrazor]

I've tried many ways to 'purify' the usb data.
Regen, Curious cable, Intona, Wireworld platium etc...

Some of them worked, but heavily reduced the dynamic. (I guess high dynamic is sort of 'fluctuation' that are filtered.)
Some of them just don't work at all.

It bothered me a lot, until I thought that only light may be naturally free of noise with no other solutions...

Yes, I switched to SPDIF. The most expensive one on Amazon is just $20. Hundred times less than what I've spent.

I can't be happier with the sound, bass is fuller, background is darker, oh it's not dark, it's vancuumed emptiness of nothing.

I know some sayings like SPDIF combines clock and data info all together blah blah. I think DAC nowadays can perfectly handle it. (by listening to it, more than reading about it.)

With SPDIF, the sound is exactly what it meant to be. Say nearly 100% transfer rate, where usb is at most at 60%.

Thanks god that cable manufacturers never tried to produce an hifi SPDIF cable (or I can't prevent myself from buying one as I was scared by the cheap price tag). Maybe they just can't, light is naturally transferred at highest performance. You can't make light transfer 'better'.

What did you actually do? Get a usb to optical converter??

 

[gregorio]

I've tried many ways to 'purify' the usb data.

Yep, there are quite a few ways out there. By far the best though is a competently designed DAC, all of which purify the USB data to several times below the threshold of audibility. There are several DACs in the $60-$130 range which are competently designed, so it's not a particularly expensive solution.

G