[gregorio]

[1] Thats what better cables do, preserve signal integrity and minimize the impact of noise.
[2] When I got into computer audio, I also didn't think a USB cable could make a difference, the old 'bits is bits' thang, but...they do. Wrong again.
[3] I'm a scientist, I just go by what the data tells me, and controlled experiments tell me these cable make a difference. Just as better power supplies do.

1. We're not talking about an analogue signal, we're talking about digital data and the quality of that digital data signal is irrelevant. It makes zero difference how high the quality is of a transmitted zero or a one, as long as it's good enough that a zero can be differentiated from a one, anything beyond that cannot and does not make a difference. That's the whole point of digital audio and why it was invented. The issue Currawong and I have discussed, is that some DACs do not correctly isolate the power (which is also supplied in the USB protocol) from it's analogue side and noise is introduced, we're not talking about the actual digital data signal itself, which is effectively immune from noise.

2. A USB cable can make a difference! How it's marketed, what we believe about it's performance, what it looks like, how much it costs, can all make a difference to how we perceive it's performance.

3. As a scientist I would expect you to know the difference between the perception of differences and actual performance differences. I would like to see the data of the "controlled experiments" you mention, all the controlled experiments I've seen provide exactly the opposite data!

[1] It is futile to try and convince the folks that cables do make differences.
[2] It is more conveniences to find the negativities about these cables and just buy a cheaper and more affordable one and thinking that it makes 0 differences. Really is futile to try and convince them.
[3] Not to mentions that many people "thought" that they are technically advanced and "believe" that they know many many things about these cables with just "googling skills."

1. In my experience, it's the other way around. It's futile to try and convince some audiophile folks that cables don't make a difference, because they're incapable of believing any actual facts which may require the acceptance of the fact human perception is flawed and easily manipulated. This is a strange logical position to take, as pretty much all commercial audio content absolutely relies on manipulating hearing perception!

2. It's got nothing to do with convenience of cheaper/more affordable. It's pretty much guaranteed that I've spent far more time and probably money on audio equipment than you and just about every other audiophile. If USB cables really did make a difference, a few hundred bucks is peanuts, however as they don't make any difference I'd rather spend that few hundred buck on something which does make a difference.

3. "Googling skills" is not the issue, the issue is understanding what google turns up, whether it's marketing BS or actual fact and there's a great deal more of the former than the latter because of the financial incentive.

The manufacturers I've spoken to, two of whom have posted here about it, thought that their USB implementations were good enough until they either did experiments themselves (with electronics, not cables) and/or had feedback from customers that they could be better.

They might have thought their USB implementations were good enough but obviously they made a mistake. Actually, they made two mistakes: 1. Their engineering design was flawed AND 2. Their quality control/testing was flawed. They should have done those experiments as part of their testing and identified and fixed that engineering flaw BEFORE the product was ever released!

G

 

[theorist]

Just discovered this thread. Sorry I missed the discussion three weeks ago. I'm on the side of the camp that all cables can make a big difference, especially USB cables, since they are the start of the signal chain (not including power), and with the lowest 'amplitude', if you will excuse this metaphor here.

I have been into audio for about 40 years. I use to design, make and tweak my own analogue gear when I was younger. I'm a university professor and my area of research concerns epistemology and the philosophy of science. I can happily discuss how we humans tend to think in simple black and white metaphorical assumptions when we create models of how the world works. This particularly applies to the 'offs' and 'ons' within the time domain of a digital signal, not to mention all the parasitical other types of noisy signals travelling around through and between all the bits and pieces in that USB cable including the 5v dc power line contained with it.

I have a rather expensive USB cable, listed below as one of the most expensive cables in my cabling loom. I also have a DAC which you can set the Femto Master Clock Speed for jitter control. Normally I have it set to EXACT which gives a very good jitter spec of 82 femtoseconds. You can set it to FINE or even COURSE which allows the DAC to have a very wide bandwidth so the DAC can lock on to pretty jittery sources. Anyhow, when I started to burn-in my new USB Cable (yes it requires burn-in), it was fine for the first 24 hours, then for about 48 hours it started to create really bad distortion when playing very aggressive music, like punk guitar (eg the Savage's first album), but was fine with less edgy stuff, like acoustic guitar. It was jitter being created in the cable. Turning the DAC clock to COURSE immediately passed a listenable signal, the next day only FINE was necessary and the following day with the cable starting to better burn-in, it could handle the signal back on EXACT without any distortion. It now sounds, of course, wonderful. So USB cables do sound different, they can create temporary distortion to do with burn-in, and this is observable in a very audible and measurable manner.

 

[chef8489]

Just discovered this thread. Sorry I missed the discussion three weeks ago. I'm on the side of the camp that all cables can make a big difference, especially USB cables, since they are the start of the signal chain (not including power), and with the lowest 'amplitude', if you will excuse this metaphor here.

I have been into audio for about 40 years. I use to design, make and tweak my own analogue gear when I was younger. I'm a university professor and my area of research concerns epistemology and the philosophy of science. I can happily discuss how we humans tend to think in simple black and white metaphorical assumptions when we create models of how the world works. This particularly applies to the 'offs' and 'ons' within the time domain of a digital signal, not to mention all the parasitical other types of noisy signals travelling around through and between all the bits and pieces in that USB cable including the 5v dc power line contained with it.

I have a rather expensive USB cable, listed below as one of the most expensive cables in my cabling loom. I also have a DAC which you can set the Femto Master Clock Speed for jitter control. Normally I have it set to EXACT which gives a very good jitter spec of 82 femtoseconds. You can set it to FINE or even COURSE which allows the DAC to have a very wide bandwidth so the DAC can lock on to pretty jittery sources. Anyhow, when I started to burn-in my new USB Cable (yes it requires burn-in), it was fine for the first 24 hours, then for about 48 hours it started to create really bad distortion when playing very aggressive music, like punk guitar (eg the Savage's first album), but was fine with less edgy stuff, like acoustic guitar. It was jitter being created in the cable. Turning the DAC clock to COURSE immediately passed a listenable signal, the next day only FINE was necessary and the following day with the cable starting to better burn-in, it could handle the signal back on EXACT without any distortion. It now sounds, of course, wonderful. So USB cables do sound different, they can create temporary distortion to do with burn-in, and this is observable in a very audible and measurable manner.

This is ridiculous. screwing around with the clock has nothing to do with the usb cable. usb cable does not need burn in. A usb cable has no sound. A digital signal does not pick up sound as it passes through the cable or wire as it travels.

 

[theorist]

This is ridiculous. screwing around with the clock has nothing to do with the usb cable. usb cable does not need burn in. A usb cable has no sound. A digital signal does not pick up sound as it passes through the cable or wire as it travels.

Of course a USB cable does pass a sound. It passes digital information from the cable's source which is always received imperfectly (due to enthropy and other factors this information can never be a perfect replication of its source, regardless of any error checking employed) and this received imperfect information is then processed into sound by the DAC, the USB cable also passes lots of other spurious signals, generically called noise, which can further distort the direct processing of this information and in other ways generate other forms of distortion which can also effect the generated sound in the circuitry of the DAC.

 

[chef8489]

Usb cables do not pass sound they pass a digital signal . Digital are not sounds. If your cable is loosing data it is faulty. You can get 100 percent perfect with cheap usb and coax abd cat 5 and even other fiber cables. If you are getting noise and jitter from your source you need to fix it as thete is a problem and it is not the usb cable.

But there is no sense in arguing with you as you ate so blinded and convinced and no logic and actual fact and logic could sway you. Its been proven with scientific measurements and double blind tests time and time again. And you guys just get more and more rediclous.

 

[theorist]

You can never prove anything with scientific method. Rather you can only test for falsification in the prediction of your model/hypothesis -- Karl Popper a rather famous Philosopher of Science.

But hey, the world is made of wonderful people that all have different views and perspectives. That's why its fun to have discussions in Head-Fi about our rigs and our music as well as the theories and practicalities that make it all work!

 

[chef8489]

You are incorrect. That is the whole point of the scientific method and testing hypothesis and theories. Once proved they become law. Ie law of gravity. It was proven via scientific method. Can esiely be proven repedially and thus is law.

 

[Puma Cat]

You are incorrect. That is the whole point of the scientific method and testing hypothesis and theories. Once proved they become law. Ie law of gravity. It was proven via scientific method. Can esiely be proven repedially and thus is law.

No, you are incorrect and Theorist is correct. You can never absolutely prove anything. You can only gather data that either leads one to accept or reject the null hypothesis, or alternatively, gather enough data to have confidence in supporting the Alternate Hypothesis. The alpha for the hypothesis tests such as this is usually set to 0.05 to determine wihich p-value is significant for accepting or rejecting the null. As as scientist, I've had these debates endlessly over the years and I've never seen anyone, ever, present *any* statistically valid data that supports the null hypothesis that cables do not make a difference. If you state they don't, then provide the data that fails to reject the null with a p-value > 0.05. Your comment above just tells Theorist and me that you do not really understand the scientific method in actuality, in a way that you can meaningfully interpret a statistically valid data set.My guess is that you don't even know what alpha and beta are with respect to hypothesis testing.

 

[Puma Cat]

Usb cables do not pass sound they pass a digital signal . Digital are not sounds. If your cable is loosing data it is faulty. You can get 100 percent perfect with cheap usb and coax abd cat 5 and even other fiber cables. If you are getting noise and jitter from your source you need to fix it as thete is a problem and it is not the usb cable.

But there is no sense in arguing with you as you ate so blinded and convinced and no logic and actual fact and logic could sway you. Its been proven with scientific measurements and double blind tests time and time again. And you guys just get more and more rediclous.

Really? Then show us statistically valid data that fails to reject the null.

 

[chef8489]

There is no data that backs uo your statements except from pople trying to push high end cables. I understand the scientific method quite well and have degrees in microbiology to prove it. I have also been at the audio game for 20 years and have spent a lot of money on cables both digital and analogue over the years. Done double blind test with hundreds of peopke. Sent cables to many places to be tested, and many other people on here have tested as well. There is a reason these threads are restricted to sound science section. You get a quality built 20.00 6 foot usb cable and it will sound and perform the same as a 1000.00 6 foot usb cable.

 

[Rockofeller]

Scientist chiming in here...no, you cannot prove something is true in the strict sense using the scientific method. But you can make decisions and determinations. For all those interested, this UC Berkeley site is a great resource, and even talks about the above-referenced (and out-of-favor) idea of Popper re: science only disproving things. http://undsci.berkeley.edu/teaching/misconceptions.php

 

[gregorio]

[1] I'm a university professor and my area of research concerns epistemology and the philosophy of science. I can happily discuss how we humans tend to think in simple black and white metaphorical assumptions when we create models of how the world works.
[2] It passes digital information from the cable's source which is always received imperfectly (due to enthropy and other factors this information can never be a perfect replication of its source, regardless of any error checking employed) and this received imperfect information is then processed into sound by the DAC,
[3] So USB cables do sound different, they can create temporary distortion to do with burn-in, and this is observable in a very audible and measurable manner.

1. I'm going to have to call you out on that one! The theory of evolution or the big bang theory are examples of scientific models to explain observations of how the world works, HOWEVER, this is NOT the case with digital audio. Digital audio theory does NOT exist as a model to explain observations of how the world works, digital audio does NOT exist in nature, DACs do not grow on trees, have to be mined or orbit stars! Rather, digital audio theory was developed, then proven mathematically and several decades later the technology was developed to implement that proven theorem. If the theory of evolution were incorrect that wouldn't change the existence of millions of fossils and observations, just our explanation of them. On the other hand, if digital audio theory were incorrect, there would be no digital audio. It's inconceivable that a university professor (of science philosophy) would not know/understand these absolute basics of science and technology, hence why I'm calling you out!

2. No, the whole point of digital audio is that it is NOT analogue audio, digital data is not analogous to the electrical (analogue) signal and therefore imperfections in the digital data signal are NOT "then processed into sound". It does not make the slightest of differences how perfect, imperfect, noisy or clean a "1" or "0" is, that's the whole reason digital audio was invented in the first place and indeed the entire existence of all digital technology (digital information theory) is based on this principle. Again, how could a professor in science philosophy not understand even the fundamental basics of digital technology?

3. As you're a university professor you must obviously have reliable evidence/data to back up your claims? I myself (and countless others) have measured bit perfect transfer of digital audio data over cheap/stock USB cables and there are billions of people who can attest to bit perfect transfer of digital data via non-audiophile USB cables. Like tens of millions of others, I transfer masses of data every day over normal USB cables; videos, documents, audio files, etc., and if cheap/stock USB cables were not capable of transferring this data perfectly then either the USB protocol or the computing/digital world we live in could not and would not exist today! Digital data is by definition black and white, zeros or ones, there is nothing else and if there were, then by definition it couldn't be digital! Again, how can even a normal, rational person not understand this, let alone a university professor?

G

 

[Arpiben]

Let's also consider/remind that DACs manufacturers are using ready made USB decoders chips or even multipurpose microcontroller chips including USB functionalities.
I am supposing that those chips susceptibly to voltage noise & different parameters are not always properly taken into account.

 

[Jazmanaut]

Theorist: You are professor of philosophy. That does not really mean nothing recard your undestanding of digital technology, or even audio per se.

^^Gregorio: I just love you.

 

[gregorio]

I am supposing that those chips susceptibly to voltage noise & different parameters are not always properly taken into account.

Agreed, I've heard a quite expensive DAC which did not "properly take that into account". On the other hand, I've used sub $100 pro audio USB ADC/DAC which did. This begs the question; how can an audiophile USB DAC with less than half the components of a pro audio USB ADC/DAC but several times the price fail to take into account the USB specification? This issue is about a DAC manufacturer's competence in handling the USB power supply though, rather than of digital audio data transfer integrity. Sure, one could buy an essentially faulty audiophile USB DAC and then an expensive cable to isolate the USB supplied power. Personally, I'd rather buy a competently designed USB DAC which can actually live up to it's name by properly dealing with the USB specification in the first place ... but that's just me!
G