Well, at $85, you’ve been hosed, but not as badly as you might have been.
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Do USB Audio Cables Make A Difference?
- Thread starter amirm
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Well, at $85, you’ve been hosed, but not as badly as you might have been.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
Why throw away $85 on a $1 cable.
Look at those connectors! It's literally the same as a $1 cable from ebay.
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Well said - the males ones just don't have that euphonic harmony.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
It's purdy but that's a lot of scratch for a digital data cable.
One from Monoprice for around $10 would be music to my ears.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
I've got a $12 one from ebay just because it was longer and braided so I can pick it out easily from the rest of my cables.
I hope so. When I went to the Moon site linked and increased the lenght to the 10' mentioned, the price went up to $170.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
lmao you are right. I just went back to check. WOWI hope so. When I went to the Moon site linked and increased the lenght to the 10' mentioned, the price went up to $170.
DIY cables are awesome if you have the time to make them!
I'm still confused on this Don. Looking at his picture the connectors appear a cheaper version of those seen on the Moon site.
But the cable itself is clearly marked Blue Dragon? Moon does sell bulk cable, it's only $12 a foot! So his 10' cable still cost him $120 + connectors + labor. And the Blue Dragon cable they sell is marked as Headphone cable????
I'm confused.
https://www.moon-audio.com/blue-dragon-headphone-cable-bulk.html
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Ah So
Yea and I missed it was 10'' not 10' LOL
So it only cost him $12 for the material.
BUT, I'm still confused cause Moon doesn't offer the BD USB cable in bulk, only headphone cable.
What's the deal @dbfreak ?
Inquiring minds need to know.
You sure about that? There are a few external storage with this solution, from some of the most legit companies as well, like Seagate and WD.
Pretty sure.
Such a cable is also dangerous because it has two USB-A connectors, and USB-A means connection to a host (Read: Power supply) = You can plug two hosts together and if you're lucky the motherboard would trigger short-circuit protection. Notice you can't find any USB-A to USB-A cables on the market, except those for USB networking.
And yes, external storage used to pull this trick. But now a single USB3 cable handles the current just fine.
They're dangerous in the wrong hands, but A to A cables are still manufactured aplenty...
https://smile.amazon.com/UGREEN-Selector-Computers-Peripheral-One-Button/dp/B01MXXQKGM/
https://smile.amazon.com/Besgoods-2-Pack-1-5Ft-Braided-Super/dp/B075CZ6Z8T/
https://smile.amazon.com/Foot-Cable-Inch-Male-Drive/dp/B00852KPQ4/
This is the one I'm using:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6N-oxyge...A-TO-B-/273158431279?var=&hash=item3f9982e22f
I bought it because I liked the colour and because of well described feature set:
Features: Using a 0.2mm oxygen free copper and silver stocks +6 11 0.08mm 99.9999% of ultra high purity oxygen-free copper wire is made, the low high school three-band mix just right.
Rough diameter 7mm, easy to carry the line is soft.Plug are gold-plated copper ferrule, metal, strong anti-interference, effective antioxidant, connection is stable, reduce the signal attenuation, to ensure good qualitytransmission effect
"The low high school three-band mix just right" feature seemed especially attractive to me!
I went and found their Chinese website, the real translation should be "very good balance between treble, mid-range, and bass"Scienceguy
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Aftermarket USB cables seem to be all the rage with people paying as much as $15,000 for a short run of it!!! Lots of subjective performance reports are out there but none back with any objective measurements that demonstrates any difference. On the other side of the fence many believe there isn't or can't be any difference in USB cables ("they are all digital"). I thought it would be good to add some data to the conversation.
For my testing, I used the Sonore microRendu as my source host. This is a networked audio renderer and comes with improved USB implementation. See my review and measureents of the 1.4 version here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...-measurements-of-sonore-microrendu-v1-4.1867/
For DAC, I used our perennial favorite, the Schiit Modi 2 DAC. Of course I say that in jest as this is by far the worst DAC I have tested. It seems to be highly sensitive to power and USB conditions. I figured if there is one DAC that can show differences in USB cables, this would be it.
The first test was with a 28 gauge decent but generic quality 6-foot or so USB cable between the Sonore microRendu and the DAC in question. I then compared that to a very short, 6 inch or so generic USB cable:
View attachment 8509
What do you know! We have the world exclusive, first and only objective "proof" that USB cables make a difference in the analog output of the DAC!!!
With long cable (in yellow) we have all of those jitter/distortion spikes around our main and only tone at 12 Khz. None should be there.
With much shorter USB cable, their levels is much diminished leaving just a couple of notable spikes.
I also have on loan a short audiophile USB cable from Triode Wire Labs called uR-link. Unfortunately I can'f find the product specific page for it. It is a shorter version of this on their web site:
View attachment 8512
Here is how it did compared to similar length generic cable:
View attachment 8513
As I noted, it seems to actually do worse than my generic cable. I ran the test again and the output was different so not conclusive. But I say don't waste your money on this cable. The mere fact that the cable is short is bringing the benefit, not any magic inside it.
Figuring shorter was the key to better performance, I used a generic "stub" USB gender converter. The one I tested came with one of my many audio tweaks/boxes and looks kind of like this:
Here are the measurements, comparing with the short USB cable:
View attachment 8511
We see better performance yet!
For final test, I actually have an audiophile version of such stub from Uptone which came with ISO Regen (see test of that here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...ptone-iso-regen-review-and-measurements.1829/)
View attachment 8514
The Uptone stub does even better, producing the cleanest output I have seen from Schiit Modi 2.
Conclusion So Far:
So it seems that USB cables do make measurable differences in the output of DACs with the shortest being the best. And carefully made one from Uptone being even better.
Should you run and buy these short cables/adapters? No, you shouldn't
Let's continue our testing, this time using another cheap DAC: the Behringer UMC204 HD which at $79 is even cheaper than the Schiit Modi2. Here I compare the long cable to generic USB stub converter:
View attachment 8515
As we see, there is no difference between the worst performing USB cable (long and generic) and the shortest one (USB stub).
High performance DACs are liable to be even more immune to such vagaries, completely neutering any electrical advantage to shorter, better USB connections.
Graphs Can Lie
Note the vertical scale in my graph. You see that the top of the graph is at negative -120 dbV. This means I have highly exaggerated the differences. If we show that full scale and compare the worst (long USB cable) to best (UpTone adapter), we get this:
View attachment 8516
While differences still show, they are so, so down in level as to not ever be an audible concern. BTW, the Schiit normally does much better if fed with clean USB power. Here I am powering the Sonore microRendu with my high quality lab supply which helps a ton in cleaning its output.
So as usual, we can show measurements that bother the eye but not the ear.
Summary
For the first time anywhere, we have shown that we can change the analog output of a DAC by changing how we feed it in digital domain in USB. Shorter cables provided improvements that were visible. Alas, two other factors conspire to make this non-news:
1. Schiit Modi 2 that I have tested is horribly designed. It is sensitive to both USB power and data noise. Even a cheaper DAC like Behringer shows that such sensitivity is due to poor DAC design than anything to do with USB cables. The Behringer performance is better than Schiit with any cable and shows no need for tweaking the USB cable.
2. I have hugely magnified these differences. Without this magnification, the differences even with lousy DACs like Schiit are literally in the noise.
So nothing here explains the fantastical subjective differences people report between USB cables. I suggest those people conduct some blind test to get to the truth of whether they are hearing any differences especially if they are using better DACs than Schiit Modi 2.
Comments and feedback as always are welcome.
Hi:
Just curious did you actually set the Modi 2 and the Behringer dac's up in a good system ( * as done in the comparison highlighted below * ) and do an extensive demo/comparison or did you decide about the Schiit Modi 2 simply by looking at your measurements? To refer to the Schiit dac as, and I quote "horribly designed" and "lousy dacs like Schiit", I can't help but believe that you have an underlying agenda for what ever reason as evidenced by this vitriol. I've always looked over measurements accompanying various reviews in many hi-fi mags such as "Stereophile", "Hi Fi+" etc, but have never come across accompanying comments such as you've expressed here! You profess to be purely into "measurements" but unfortunately this may not be totally honest. You seem to be using this forum to pass judgement on a particular manufacturer which you don't seem to like for personal reasons. Until I can find "legit measurements" from the "recognized" hi-fi community that support yours I'll have no alternative but to view your measurements as suspect at best.
I've just received the Yggdrasil 2 and have never read a negative review of the Yggy 2 when compared to other comparable dac's . Apparently it takes about 100 hours to sound it's best so I was curious and started listening upon setup. Right out of the box it sounded much better than the dac in my $2,000 Shanling CD 300 player which includes a very good tube dac. I'm a professional studio musician and have spent the last 40 + years recording, touring etc, so I'm very familiar with the sound in a professional studio environment. It seems your thoughts in regards to this particular Schiit dac is solely focused on how it measures. It's ironic that no other review that I've come across in this regard has come to the same conclusions. Recently ( see below* ) the latest Yggy 2 at $2449 was compared to the highly regarded Esoteric K-01 X which costs roughly $20,000. The comparison was done in a controlled "pro studio" setting by a very accomplished and experienced recording engineer. He found no compromise in sound quality between the two dac's and could easily live with either. By the way he did purchase both dac's before the comparison they were not given to him for gratis by either manufacturer!
*( See the comparison here : Esoteric K-01X versus Schiit Audio Yggdrasil (audioshark.org) ).* pretty compelling!
I've researched and read many comparisons before ordering my Yggy 2, which is considered an absolute "steal" by the way in "The Absolute Sound" ,and also many other audiophile magazines because of it's robust build quality, connectivity and above all it's outstanding sound quality in regards to cd reproduction. Please listen to the Schiit dac and re-evaluate your "opinion" because you're doing your readership and Schiit a disservice with what I believe to be the harsh comments you've made. Believe me I'm not saying this because I own one only because I don't like to see any manufacturer unfairly treated in this way.
For reference my system consists of the following:
1) Audio Space "Reference" 2.1 integrated tube amp ( KT 88's ).
2) Michel GyroDec SE heavily upgraded w/ the Michel external power supply.
3) Benz Micro LP-MR S the top of the Benz line moving coil.
4) Fosgate Signature tube phono pre-amp.
5) Shanling CD 300 cd player ( transport only ) DH Labs "Silver Sonic" AES-EUB cabled to my Schiit Yggdrasil 2 dac.
6) Magnapan 1.7's with "Mye" stands.
7) Two REL 305 subs.
Understand I'm not a wealthy man and it's taken me many years to get my current system together but Schiit makes such amazing low to moderate priced exceptional gear that it allows me/us to get a glimpse at the true "hi end". Before the arrival of Schiit to the market place this was simply out of reach for us "plebeians" true "unobtainium". Now with the addition of the Yggy 2 my analogue and digital front ends sound comprable ( I have roughly 4000-5000 lp's and cd's ). The personal at Schiit Audio are extremely accommodating very pleasant and also have a great sense of humour to boot they should be applauded for their amazing efforts. Do yourself AND your readers a BIG favour and give this fabulous and reasonably priced equipment an "un-biased" listen because I can't see how you could not be impressed. If you think the Esoteric K-01 X measures well, and you know it does, you'll be blown away by this un-biased comparison!
Thanks,
Scienceguy.
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