[The Fly]

Hi All
 
I'm currently feeding my MF V-DAC MKii with ALAC files from a MacBook Pro via optical connection. It sounds beautiful to me, but after reading about asynchronous USB I started to think I might not be getting the best out of my system. I tried with an old USB cable that I eventually managed to retrieve from my cable box (AKA the spaghetti), no idea where it came from or what it was for! Needless to say it sounded terrible - really thin and lacking in depth.
 
Anyway, my question is would it be worth investing in a high quality USB cable to get the most out of my system? I'd like your opinions on whether you believe it would sound better or not, references to jitter or similar are honestly not going to mean anything to me!  
 
FYI the DAC feeds a Graham Slee Novo > AKG K702.
 
Thank you...

 

[obobskivich]

It shouldn't sound different either way (regarding jitter via asynch - yes there is some measurement data to support improvements, but not much has been said or written beyond that, at least that I've seen; it's kinda like we know it's in the room but haven't really walked up and said "hi" yet - it shouldn't be a problem either way though) - did you ensure that no settings/configurations were changed aside from the cabling? Did the device switch to drawing power from the USB port instead of the wall? How about EQ/trim/gain settings? I'm thinking something changed here.
 
I wouldn't bother with a super expensive USB cable - it'll be the same thing in a nicer box (you're talking about those $70 Belkin cables at Best Buy and the sort, right? Those are marked up as part of the "printer and ink" scam - not because of any higher quality construction). That's either way. 
 
However, and this is a more pragmatic approach, your thread reads sort of like this conversation:
 
Patient: Doc It hurts when I do this!
Doc: Don't do that then!
 
So based on that, put it back how you had it and go back to enjoying life - all should be good.
 
 
 
 

 

[Kawai_man]

Neither, if you can upgrade your internal soundcard via pci or something like that this will give the best results, Spdif and USB result in too many Digital conversions before it gets converted to analog from what I understand.

 

[homeros8000]

You can get a much better result connecting optical to a quality CD player as a transport. Although it shouldn't matter from a theoretical point of view but I have experienced much better results connecting my Marantz CD Player to my DAC in comparison to USB connection with my laptop. Computer sound has a digital harshness and thinness although a tad more detailed, while CD player sound is smoother, warmer and more lively.  There are many quality CD players sold on Ebay around 100$, sometimes less.