Audio Reviewer Becomes Distressed When his Blind Test Fails to Show Expensive USB Cable is the Best

[Russell484]

I think his conclusion that his wife who knows nothing about audio and cares nothing about audio could hear the difference and describe it immediately is most interesting. Therefore I think we should demand that reviewers in audio mags or YouTube vids should know nothing about audio and care nothing about audio and only listen for a minute or two to tell us what is the best sounding cable or amp etc. Anyone reviewing for an audio magazine that knows something about audio or cares about it should be immediately fired.

 

[radix]

There are some actual differences in USB cables. But that is between USB 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.x, etc. revision of the standard. I think the DAC used in that video is a USB 2.0 interface (I think most DACs are 2.0, unless they want to do silly DSD speeds?). So if you were to use a really really old USB 1.x (rated for 1.5 or 12 Mbps) cable with a USB 2.0 device at high speed (480 Mbps), I could see that not working out too well for you. You could get dropped frames.

Usb 1.1 required no more than 400 pS (pico-seconds) of skew between D+ and D-. Usb 2.0 reduced that to 200 pS. There might have been differences in capacitance too.

There are also unshielded "low-speed" cables and shielded "high-speed" cables. Who knows what he used.

Anyway, nowadays, any decent certified cable will meet all the needed specifications and they should all work the same, as far as bit error rate and retransmissions. If one thinks a cable makes any difference, use Performance Monitor (under windows) and you should be able to see Transfer Errors/Sec and Iso Packet Errors/Sec. USB ports always (AFAIK) buffer data, so the pico-second bit timing will not make it up to analog playback.

Also, computers often have different types of USB ports on them, which can usually be told apart by their color. I don't know if he used the same port types for all the DACs. Experimental setup and methodology was a bit thin.

Marc

 

[MaxBuck]

I wonder how many rocks, crystals and cable lifters this fellow has invested in.

 

[preload]

It's a textbook illustration of cognitive dissonance. "Dissonance" occurs when the subject is faced with the possibility that his long-held core belief (that his $$$ cable makes a large audible difference) is actually untrue. The dissonance is resolved by concluding that the blind listening tests are flawed because they do not reveal the obvious difference that exists. Very predictable.

 

[JSmith]

Everyone knows one needs to spend at least $1200+ to get an audiophile grade USB cable... like the Tchernov Cable PRO USB A-B IC;

... comes in a special box and all. /s



JSmith

 

[MaxBuck]

So what happens when the buyer gets his or her artisan audiophile USB cable and finds out he/she didn't need a USB-C termination but rather a micro-USB?

 

[Rottmannash]

Is it just me or does audiophile nonsense sound just a bit more rational when uttered by a British accent?

Australian I believe...

 

[Rottmannash]

I've watched a few of his videos. Like many subjectivists, has an overactive imagination. I have to say he's a polite fellow though; I confronted him a few times on some of his irrational conclusions and he was always polite in his responses. Sadly, that doesn't make up for the nonsense he's peddling.

I also disagreed with some of his comments, one regarding the negative review he gave the Topping E30. He was very polite but insistent the DAC was just a terrible piece of junk...when I directed him to ASR and the objective review and measurements he fell back on that old tried and true excuse-it's because of the analog output stage. When I reminded him Amir wasn't testing the chip, but the entire device including the output stage he repeated his assertion it was a terrible piece of junk. But he said it very politely.

 

[Doodski]

Everyone knows one needs to spend at least $1200+ to get an audiophile grade USB cable... like the Tchernov Cable PRO USB A-B IC;

View attachment 152024

... comes in a special box and all. /s



JSmith

That USB cable looks like a PCB buster from the weight of the cable.

 

[escksu]

Btw, I did read about this quite sometime ago.

https://www.soundguys.com/usb-audio-explained-18563/

I do agree jitter is an issue. However, this should be resolved by the equipment side instead of cables. There is no reason why you need a $600 cable to resolve jitter issue. All cables that conform to specs will be able to do that. I dont believe anyone lives in an environment thats exceptionally "noisy". We don't live beside power stations, we don't live beside radio towers, neither do we live in some radioactive/nuclear zone. So, any form of interference is usually kept to safe and minumum level.

 

[Doodski]

we don't live beside radio towers

I've been eyeballing those cel tel antennas on the sides of condo & business towers and figure those are very directional otherwise the peeps living in the building(s) would have issues. Otherwise the electronics RF rejection must be pretty good for all in the vicinity.

 

[escksu]

That USB cable looks like a PCB buster from the weight of the cable.

Haha..... but cant be helped. If its too thin, it won't look expensive and probably not worth buying...

 

[DanielT]

A man who can not understand that his wife uses the same words and expressions as him. Fascinating.

He has of course, before this, sat and chatted about his various experiences in sound for his wife. She must have listened to him babbling. Surely she had politely, for peace in the house, "listened" to what he had to say. That was probably what stuck with the wife, the descriptions from her husband regarding sound that she used when she became involved in the test. No wonder.

My sister is a woman who says what she thinks. I involved her in my blind test of CD / Blu -Ray
players. Her comment was:
"Why are you as a middle-aged man doing these nonsense. I can not hear difference between those. Should they sound different? "
... She has a point ...(I was bored and had nothing else better to do)

Doubtful that in the video he has a wife like my sister. His wife certainly wants to be okay with him. Get him to feel confirmed and so on. Then it will be as described in the video. Simple psychology.

 

[posvibes]

When you hear such analysis said out loud it seems even more bizarre than when you read it in a review. An expensive USB cable bought for its "resolving" capabilities can only be correctly judged when used with a DAC with resolving capabilities. I would tend to think if a cable actually had claimed resolving capabilities it's capability would be more evident with a budget DAC than a top of the range DAC.

 

[Doodski]

When you hear such analysis said out loud it seems even more bizarre than when you read it in a review. An expensive USB cable bought for its "resolving" capabilities can only be correctly judged when used with a DAC with resolving capabilities. I would tend to think if a cable actually had claimed resolving capabilities it's capability would be more evident with a budget DAC than a top of the range DAC.

Such is the mystery and magic of snake-oilZ.

 

[radix]

Btw, I did read about this quite sometime ago.

https://www.soundguys.com/usb-audio-explained-18563/

I do agree jitter is an issue. However, this should be resolved by the equipment side instead of cables.

I do not think his presentation about jitter is correct. This is from that article.

This seems to imply that some clock jitter on the wire in the data corresponds to DAC jitter that results in AC waveform distortion. I do not believe that is true. Some DAC chips with built-in USB do try to recover the audio clock from the embedded signal, but that is really an issue with the device's clock. I thought that all good DACs use their own high-quality clock isolated from the I2S or USB clock.

This is from the USB 2.0 standard, page 67, when discussing isochronous transfers (I added the bold):

A master clock (which can be provided by software driven from the real time clock) in the PC is used to awaken the mixer to ask the input source for input data and to provide output data to the output sink. In this example, assume it awakens every 20 ms. The microphone and speakers each have their own sample clocks that are unsynchronized with respect to each other or the master mixer clock. The microphone produces data at its natural rate (one-byte samples, 8,000 times a second) and the speakers consume data at their natural rate (four-byte samples, 44,100 times a second). The three clocks in the system can drift and jitter with respect to each other. Each rate matcher may also be running at a different natural rate than either the mixer driver, the input source/driver, or output sink/driver.

USB is not simple TTL signaling, like that article shows. It is a NRZI encoding of multiple voltage levels that yield different eye diagrams depending on the USB version.

The article is about USBC (usb 4). USB 4 is nothing like early USB. It is Reed-Solomon FEC encoded, which means the bits are scrambled. USB 4 interfaces have re-timers in them between the cable and a DC-blocking capacitive coupler and the host buffer. It uses a spread-spectrum signal. I believe all the services, like isochronous transfer, are handled by upper layers. They no longer exist on the wire as separate signaling.

I'm not a USB implementor, so maybe I'm missing something here.

Marc

 

[escksu]

I do not think his presentation about jitter is correct. This is from that article.

View attachment 152026

This seems to imply that some clock jitter on the wire in the data corresponds to DAC jitter that results in AC waveform distortion. I do not believe that is true. Some DAC chips with built-in USB do try to recover the audio clock from the embedded signal, but that is really an issue with the device's clock. I thought that all good DACs use their own high-quality clock isolated from the I2S or USB clock.

This is from the USB 2.0 standard, page 67, when discussing isochronous transfers (I added the bold):



USB is not simple TTL signaling, like that article shows. It is a NRZI encoding of multiple voltage levels that yield different eye diagrams depending on the USB version.

The article is about USBC (usb 4). USB 4 is nothing like early USB. It is Reed-Solomon FEC encoded, which means the bits are scrambled. USB 4 interfaces have re-timers in them between the cable and a DC-blocking capacitive coupler and the host buffer. It uses a spread-spectrum signal. I believe all the services, like isochronous transfer, are handled by upper layers. They no longer exist on the wire as separate signaling.

I'm not a USB implementor, so maybe I'm missing something here.

Marc

I am not really sure about USB as well. However, one thing I am very sure is that whatever issues there are, its related to the equipment and cables don't help. If you are facing any audio issues with regards to USB, I am very certain swapping to an expensive USB cable is not going to resolve it.

 

[DanielT]

 

[Doodski]

I am not really sure about USB as well. However, one thing I am very sure is that whatever issues there are, its related to the equipment and cables don't help. If you are facing any audio issues with regards to USB, I am very certain swapping to an expensive USB cable is not going to resolve it.

Any cable that affects jitter or digital waveform indecisiveness is bound to have reactance that is undesirable for proper operation.

 

[JSmith]

cables don't help

Correct and nothing audible;

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-high-end-usb-cables-make-a-difference.11272/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...audible-difference-kimber-kable-review.20778/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ents-of-wireworld-starlight-7-usb-cable.6599/



JSmith