JPS Superconductor V USB Cable Review

[delta76]

If a company has no shame to call it "superconductor" you should wake up.

if a company charge $1000 for an audio cable, you should wake up too.

 

[tomtoo]

if a company charge $1000 for an (audio) digital cable, you should wake up too.

Two wake up calls in a row, you could call it a alarm.

 

[fpitas]

But the musicality of the cable wasn't measured?

Musicality is determined by a very simple simple formula:

M = log (DUT price) + P

where:
DUT price is how much you paid, and
P is prestigiousness, measured by referring to YouTube videos and Fremer recommendations

 

[Soria Moria]

Musicality is the most confusing audiophool term.

 

[fpitas]

Musicality is the most confusing audiophool term.

I think it means, "they like it".

 

[sarumbear]

This a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the JPS Labs Superconductor V "Ultra high-performance" USB cable. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1000.

Not only silly money but their description is false advertising too. Superconductor is a defined name.

 

[BR52]

Not only silly money but their description is false advertising too. Superconductor is a defined name.

This I was saying in post #42

 

[MyCuriosity]

he was mocking the subjectivists.

Mocking? Mocking people is rude and not very gentleman. I don't think he was mocking anyone. Anyway. Not more to say about it.

 

[fpitas]

Not only silly money but their description is false advertising too. Superconductor is a defined name.

I might still forgive the marketing hype if it did anything a $10 Amazon Basics cable doesn't do perfectly well.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

USB Voltage drop test?

Also, testing a USB cable on a setup that manages to produce such clean graphs with a $2 cable, is not going to reveal anything.
Testing it on a setup that does suffer from issues on USB, but is otherwise clean on optical, may show up something.
Also always in SE, and no USB isolators.
Just my 2 pence.
Since I DIY my own cables, by default I am skeptical of expensive cables, so I don't expect anything positive even under my own conditions.

 

[MyCuriosity]

It was an uncontrolled test. As such, differences are almost guaranteed to be heard.

Fair.

 

[thewas]

This I was saying in post #42

And I in #27

 

[AudioSceptic]

This a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the JPS Labs Superconductor V "Ultra high-performance" USB cable. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1000.
View attachment 270213
The cable has a decent feel but does not want to be rotated. As you know though, the USB connectors need to be aligned by rotating the cable so this present some inconvenience and pressure on the mating connector. The cable as you see, lacks any hint of it being a premium one with mundane jacketing and such.

JPS Labs Superconductor V USB Cable Measurements
To test the cable I used my Topping D70s which sits on my desk for this kind of testing. The source is my workstation PC. I connected the two first with a generic 6 foot USB cable (double the length of the JPS). This cable is soft in hand, thinner and generally much easier to manipulate than the JPS. Here is the D70s performance with it:

View attachment 270214

Distortion is at -125 dBFS which is 15 dB better than threshold of hearing. Combined with noise, we are down to about -119 dB which is about 4 dB better than best case threshold of hearing. In other words, this combo is completely transparent. What you hear, is what is in your music. Let's swap out the generic cable for the JPS:
View attachment 270215
Other than typical run to run variations, there is absolutely no difference. Everything from noise to levels and frequency are the same.

It is often thought that USB cables impact jitter so let's measure and compare that:
View attachment 270216

The D70s combined with the signal processing in the analyzer are able to easily resolve the rightmost bits of a 24-bit audio sample (see the pulses on the left bottom). Both cables provide the same resolution, noise floor and jitter. Of course, all the heavy lifting is being done by the D70s to eliminate any chance of jitter over its USB connection.

Finally, let's run 32 tones at 192 kHz sampling to push the USB cable harder:
View attachment 270218

Performance once again is identical with intermodulation/noise floor at whopping -130 to -135 dB! This is 20 dB better than what we need for total transparency. We can predict that the rest of the tests will generate the same outcome so let's move on to listening tests.

JPS Superconductor V USB Cable Listening Tests
I connected the output of the Topping D70s to Topping A90 which in turn drove my Dan Clark Stealth headphones ($4000). I used the high gain on the A90 to make sure I could hear any difference in background noise. I started with the JPS cable and the sound was as wonderful as I remembered on my standard reference tracks (which I have listened to hundreds of times). I then switched to the generic USB cable. Surprising (not), it sounded louder and more dynamic! I switched back to the JDS USB cable and difference vanished, leaving me with less perceived fidelity. Of course, this not a valid test as the switching time is way too long to allow proper comparison for small differences. But if folks want to run by "what I heard," I heard the generic USB cable sounding "better."

Conclusions
USB cables in short length deliver all the bits correctly. The ground connection though from the PC to DAC is an analog affair so in theory, some difference in noise can be there. If there is, and you can audibly hear something the solution is not another USB cable but to use better isolation (Toslink, XLR cables for interconnects, etc.). Measurements here show that there is no difference even in that department when with a "noisy" source like my desktop workstation PC.

Ad-hoc listening tests as usual produce unreliable results which if taken at face value, put the generic USB cable ahead of the JPS cable! So if you want to go by that, we still don't have anything of value here.

As you can predict by now, I can't recommend the JPS Labs Superconductor V USB. It is just a waste of money compared to any half-decent generic cable.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

"The cable has a decent feel but does not want to be rotated." Eh? Do you mean "twisted"?

 

[the_brunx]

 

[AudioSceptic]

Thanks to the member that sent this in and for your testing... but gosh, $1000 for a USB cable is nothing but highway robbery! I wonder how the owners of JPS sleep at night, really.


JSmith

No one forces anyone to buy this stuff; it's amazing what people will do voluntarily.

 

[Soria Moria]

No one forces anyone to buy this stuff; it's amazing what people will do voluntarily.

When I was new to the audiophile thing 2 years ago I spent around $1000 on cables because I was convinced by people on other forums that it matters. It plays heavily on the fear of missing out feeling. ‘You’ll keep your system back if you don’t upgrade your cables’.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I like the USB-C cables because the plug in either way. It seems when I try to plug in a USB-A connector, I have it the wrong way 90% of the time. It should be 50-50.

Micro USB is the tricky one as it's so tiny. Perhaps Apple wouldn't have come up with Lighting if USB-C hadn't taken so long to appear.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Testing one of these $1000 digital cables is like playing with your 7 and 8 year old nieces and having them tell you to sit down on a whoopee cushion: You know exactly what's going to happen, but you play along and do it anyway.

 

[pavuol]

BTW they don't even specify which standard it is so if it was USB 1.0 from 1996 you have no right to complain

 

[AudioSceptic]

When I was new to the audiophile thing 2 years ago I spent around $1000 on cables because I was convinced by people on other forums that it matters. It plays heavily on the fear of missing out feeling. ‘You’ll keep your system back if you don’t upgrade your cables’.

I've never spent that much but for years I still had that doubt that there must be "something" in what they claim, even if I could never justify the cost. As a result I've got cables by Linn and QED which cost more than generic but still seemed reasonably priced.