[uchihaitachi]

Quote:

 
Possibly, but I hate to label. I don't think I'm being presumptuous in stating that several of us here still qualify.

I must say having read what he wrote again, it's far too detailed and in depth to be merely a farce...

 

[leogodoy]

Why dish out $350 for a subtle improvement?

I have a hunch...

No, really, the point is, when you accused us of "Looking at it completely backwards" you got really close to the answer. check it out:

"What good would a fancy designed cable be if it did not sound subjectively better than Lacie Flat of Belkin Gold? That to me would be an enormous waste of money."

That sentence alone explains everything. People see $$$$ and almost instantly think, nay, they KNOW it relates to quality. This makes the life of companies easier: put a more expensive product out there and there will be folks that, even withouth fully understanding the technology behind it, will swear on it's quality and say it worth every penny.

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

That sentence alone explains everything. People see $$$$ and almost instantly think, nay, they KNOW it relates to quality. This makes the life of companies easier: put a more expensive product out there and there will be folks that, even withouth fully understanding the technology behind it, will swear on it's quality and say it worth every penny.

 
And, because of the way our brains work, to them, it actually might appear to sound better, without actually affecting the sound at all. Expectation bias, is a tricksome thing. 

 

[xnor]

This reminds me what I read about delusions. Some criteria for them are:

1. certainty (held with absolute conviction)
2. incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary)
3. impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre or patently untrue)

 

[bigshot]

I'm not going to get into psychoanalyzing. But I will say this. People put a lot of faith in high end stereo salesmen. They figure that they'll never really fully understand "jitter" and "skin effect"... "but here's a guy who speaks confidently about fancy equipment... I'll pay him to solve all those problems for me." And then the salesman merrily makes mountains out of molehills and sells them a bunch of overpriced junk they really don't need.

The sad thing is, while we like to think that high end audio is the domain of rich guys with money to burn, that really isn't the case. It's people who are excited about great sound that are willing to put a lot into getting it. Unfortunately, they trust someone else to figure it out for them instead of figuring it all out for themselves. If they'd spend a little time trying to understand how it all works, those salesmen wouldn't be able to convince them to buy a bazooka to swat a gnat.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

 
Fair enough. I agree with that. But generally the better more revealing components are more expensive. This type of thing can be (and is) proved with double-blind tests.
 

 
The esteemed Dr Sean Olive (an occasional poster her) will disagree with you. He has performed many DBTs while heading research at Harman. Among his findings is that when listeners do not know what they are listening to they will tend to prefer the more accurate device regardless of price. When they have clues about the cost and appearance of what they are listening to they will tend to erroneously prefer the expensive/flash looking items even if it is worse quality, it is just basic psychology. In his tests the more accurate item is very seldom the most expensive. In short he finds no reliable correlation between price and quality. And he is not alone here , there are tons of DBTs on the web (sadly few done quite as well as Dr Olive) that reinforce the fact by demonstrating that in DBT the expensive item is seldom differentiated from the less expensive on sound terms alone. In the classic Masters and Clark study many different amps including boutique monoblock tube amps and a cheapo Pioneer receiver were pitted against each other. In the sighted tests audiophiles easily detected differences and described them in great detail. When the study moved to the DBT stage these obvious differences vanished like Brigadoon. You can find numerous cases of testers pretending to swap items such as leads and cables leading to listeners describing non-existent differences.
 
As for USB cables in particular there have been zero verifiable properly conducted DBTs that have indicated any audible difference between properly functioning USB cables. I'm sure one can find plenty of dog and pony shows but here these do not count.

 

[Mambosenior]

Is this claim by a USB cable manufacturer really possible? If it is, how does it equal better sound?

"(our cable)...provides precisely balanced 90-ohm impedance, for performance that far exceeds the official USB 2.0 High Speed specification."

 

[uchihaitachi]

Quote:

Is this claim by a USB cable manufacturer really possible? If it is, how does it equal better sound?

"(our cable)...provides precisely balanced 90-ohm impedance, for performance that far exceeds the official USB 2.0 High Speed specification."

Nice Rachmaninoff picture.
 
We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives.

PLEASE! You must listen! We cannot maintain the link for long... I will type as fast as I can.

DO NOT USE AUDIOPHILE USB CABLES!

We were fools, fools to develop such a thing! Sound was never meant to be this clear, this pure, this... accurate and this unworldly. For a few short days, we marveled. Then the... whispers... began.

Were they Aramaic? Hyperborean? Some even more ancient tongue, first spoken by elder races under the red light of dying suns far from here? We do not know, but somehow, slowly... we began to UNDERSTAND.

No, no, please! I don't want to remember! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME REMEMBER! I saw brave men claw their own eyes out... oh, god, the screaming... the mobs of feral children feasting on corpses, the shadows MOVING, the fires burning in the air! The CHANTING!

WHY CAN'T I FORGET THE WORDS???

We live underground. We speak with our hands. We wear the earplugs all our lives.

Do not use audiophile USB cables!
 
Moral of the story. Don't use audiophile cables if you believe in them or if you don't

 

[mikeaj]

You know, I'm actually kind of curious what kind of differences in DAC performance you could measure on a bench with some intentionally poor, non-compliant USB cable. If it's bad enough, the system won't work at all. Is there actually a gray area where it'd work but only distort the output appreciably? Seems pretty hard to target the kind of bit error rate and pattern for that to happen.

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

You know, I'm actually kind of curious what kind of differences in DAC performance you could measure on a bench with some intentionally poor, non-compliant USB cable. If it's bad enough, the system won't work at all. Is there actually a gray area where it'd work but only distort the output appreciably? Seems pretty hard to target the kind of bit error rate and pattern for that to happen.

As far as I know, you might hear drop-outs and pops, depending on the transfer type. But no distortion, or other muddying or anything. 

 

[mikeaj]

http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb4.shtml
 
Okay, so for isochronous, there's still a CRC check to determine correctness (so bits being flipped would be detected), but what's the behavior when the check fails? Interpolation or a drop out? If interpolation, you could call that distortion, in some sense. If a drop out... I guess you could still call it distortion, but it'd usually be more of a click or pop.
 
For the other modes, what happens if corrections and retransmissions don't happen in time? Buffer underrun -> drop outs? Probably.

 

[anetode]

Quote:

Is this claim by a USB cable manufacturer really possible? If it is, how does it equal better sound?

"(our cable)...provides precisely balanced 90-ohm impedance, for performance that far exceeds the official USB 2.0 High Speed specification."

That's rich, EIA 364 – 108: 76.5 ohm min, 103.5 ohm max.
 
Quote:

You know, I'm actually kind of curious what kind of differences in DAC performance you could measure on a bench with some intentionally poor, non-compliant USB cable. If it's bad enough, the system won't work at all. Is there actually a gray area where it'd work but only distort the output appreciably? Seems pretty hard to target the kind of bit error rate and pattern for that to happen.

You might be able to induce audible jitter with a long enough cable and a poor enough DAC. Host software only limits jitter to +/- one sample and you have a full 1.5 microseconds before the host thinks a device is disconnected.

 

[367459]

Hi - just recently joined and happened across the audio myths thread and now this one. Love the scientific approach to complement the audio highs. It makes me feel I am getting the bigger picture reading the different points of view. 
 
I bought my first DAC recently. I have been putting together a system on a tight budget so I went for the new Audio Poutine cDAC+ https://www.facebook.com/AudioPoutine (love it - I will get round to a review one day). However, when I first hooked it up to my PC I could hear the improved audio but it had all sorts of clicks and pops after a while. I played for hours with different USB ports and different USB cables and different media players. I went on the Foobar200 and VLC forums and tried all the different config settings. I was really disappointed and thought it was either the DAC or my PC. I then remembered I had my work laptop at home and tried it on that. It sounded great. No clicks or pops. After more research I went out and bought a cheap ($20) powered USB hub and connected my DAC through that instead of directly into the PC USB ports. It has been perfect ever since. Not a single click or pop. I am guessing I just had too many devices pulling from the PC USB power source?
 
So I guess this post isn't specifically about different USB cables but this might at least save someone else the hours of troubleshooting I went though...
 
Thanks for this great forum and all the lively posts.
Andy

 

[noahbickart]

I have a usb keyboard. I used to connect it to my computer with a stock usb cable. On a whim I decided to use this cable instead: 
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AQMUSBDIA%20.75
 
It costs a mere $548 dollars, which, given that I have about $2000 in my computer, seems like a good deal.
 
Wow! The difference in my typing is amazing!
My nouns and adjectives agree with more precision!
My verbs stand out with greater action, and my nouns are free from hash and jitter.
The words I write have better flow and pace.
 
Anyone who can't tell the difference must not have golden ears. A better usb cable makes anyone a better writer.

 

[Greenleaf7]

I have a usb keyboard. I used to connect it to my computer with a stock usb cable. On a whim I decided to use this cable instead: 


http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AQMUSBDIA%20.75


 


It costs a mere $548 dollars, which, given that I have about $2000 in my computer, seems like a good deal.


 


Wow! The difference in my typing is amazing!


My nouns and adjectives agree with more precision!


My verbs stand out with greater action, and my nouns are free from hash and jitter.


The words I write have better flow and pace.


 


Anyone who can't tell the difference must not have golden ears. A better usb cable makes anyone a better writer.

I absolutely agree. I just upgraded my printer USB cable to a printerphile USB cable. Now the colors are much more vivid and the pictures seem much more alive. My next upgrade will be the power supply cable.