Do USB Cables Make an Audible Difference (Kimber Kable Review)?

[zbroyc]

Hi folks. I am a new member here and listened with interest to Amir's testing of various USB cables. There is a question that keeps coming to mind, and forgive me if this has been addressed in a FAQ section... but...is it possible that providing a variable and dynamic source (music) through these cables (as in potentially audible) will provide a different outcome than the relatively static and simple laboratory measurements? I have background both in science (physical therapy) and as a musician and have been intrigued by this question. thank your very much. Roy

 

[Labjr]

I wouldn't buy outrageously price cables of any type. However, I did find that some cheap USB cables make problems with my DAC. I generally use an inexpensive generic USB 3.0 type cable that works well.

 

[dc655321]

is it possible that providing a variable and dynamic source (music) through these cables (as in potentially audible) will provide a different outcome than the relatively static and simple laboratory measurements?

No.

 

[dfuller]

Hi folks. I am a new member here and listened with interest to Amir's testing of various USB cables. There is a question that keeps coming to mind, and forgive me if this has been addressed in a FAQ section... but...is it possible that providing a variable and dynamic source (music) through these cables (as in potentially audible) will provide a different outcome than the relatively static and simple laboratory measurements? I have background both in science (physical therapy) and as a musician and have been intrigued by this question. thank your very much. Roy

Negative. Data is data, and any sort of noise contamination would happen regardless of bit stream.

 

[Spocko]

Special people hear special things...far beyond what ordinary people hear, or what a simple man made box could possibly measure.

Hearing special things costs money.

Don't you want to be special?

If you want to send it back because it does nothing...I guess you aren't very special after all.

Probably didn't give it enough time to burn-in.

A former ad man I see!

 

[Jimster480]

And since a "good DAC" can be had for less than $300 these days, you are actually better off spending on acoustic room treatment before anything in your setup as this would make the most audible improvement for the least money.

Good DAC's can literally be had for $100 now, which is just crazy. $300 was a few years ago. The prices are much lower now!

 

[Rottmannash]

What about RCA interconnects? Is there a benefit in using, for instance gold plated connectors vs whatever the cheap ones are made of?

 

[Mnyb]

What about RCA interconnects? Is there a benefit in using, for instance gold plated connectors vs whatever the cheap ones are made of?

The gold plating is good for "seldom remove cables" or how to phrase it the connectors wont corrode and get you bad contact over time.
If you switch often like pros do, some rhodium plating will be more wear and tear proof . Gold is soft and would wear of.

But they never sound different when you established good contact.

But gold plating the connectors does not cost much , i had these free in the box cables with gold plating too. Gold can be applied in very thin layers , its looks super expensive but it's not .

I dont know what kind of alloys is popular , gold is often used in consumer products because its immediately recognized as "good" .
Professional connectors can be made of whatever the mfg thinks appropriate for the application , brass contacts silver plating , nickel plating etc.

 

[the_brunx]

Very interesting. its about audio. but it can apply beyond that. what's important/ makes a true difference and what's important only in our brain.

 

[Tks]

On a side note, I've heard long ago, that using ferrite chokes aren't good in some applications (not sure what industry, this was when I was still in high school). Is there any downside to using chokes (even in theory) for USB cables, or other cables? Or is it simply not on every cable due to whatever they cost to have?

 

[wwenze]

What seems to me to be missing in these discussions is the "marketing" perspective. I would really like to hear from someone who is employed by, or used to work for marketing in companies such as Kimber Kable. Perhaps I am alone, but I would really love to hear about the techniques used by marketers to put forth these audiophile belief systems.

If a customer returns a cable saying it is broken and now only has the performance of a $2 cable, how does their RMA team prove it?

 

[Francis Vaughan]

.is it possible that providing a variable and dynamic source (music) through these cables (as in potentially audible) will provide a different outcome than the relatively static and simple laboratory measurements?

This is actually a good question and although for USB the answer is “no”, for S/PDIF the answer is “yes”.
The problem of data dependent issues in transmission is well understood. There are a multitude of ways of encoding data onto a channel. When you are encoding with a voltage there a number of things that one wants to avoid. One is an encoding whereby an average of the encoded values sums to a non zero value over time. If this happens the line will develop a DC offset following a moving average (low pass filter) of the encoding. This will lead to issues in the detection of the encoding in the receiver. If encoding is self clocked it can cause issues in clock synchronisation.
This stuff was well understood more than half a century ago. Terms like Manchester Encoding, Non Return to Zero (NRZ) and so on are common in the parlance of any communications engineer. USB is properly designed, otherwise it would never work at the data rates it provides.
But the guys that designed S/PDIF were asleep in class. You can take an S/PDIF connection, attach a capacitor to it, and connect that to an amp. You will get recognisable audio. Since the data is self clocked the receiver will try to recover the sample clock from a data source that itself contains an audio related offset, neatly injecting the audio into clock recovery. So you get audio correlated clock jitter. Lovely. Moreover, if you have a really shoddy interconnect that is prone to noise pickup, that noise can get into the clock recovery. So you can have clock (jitter) performance that is affected by noise pickup convolved with the audio encoded in the data. Thus "yes" to the question.

This has not been a real problem for years, but designers of audio DACs have had to create additional circuitry to handle the problem.

Not that there are not still probably ultra-expensive boutique DACs that remain so poorly designed that they are sensitive to such issues, and thus prove that they are so high-end that they can discern the difference between cables whereas much cheaper lesser devices that are designed by engineers with a clue are not sensitive. The woo is strong.

 

[Abe_W]

And since a "good DAC" can be had for less than $300 these days, you are actually better off spending on acoustic room treatment before anything in your setup as this would make the most audible improvement for the least money.

Who told you good room acoustic treatment is cheap? If you're not a good woodworker or have a decent shop at home for diy, count on emptying the wallet.

 

[Lambda]

better off spending on acoustic room treatment before anything in your setup as this would make the most audible improvement for the least money.

Big reason why outdoor concert are so mush better.

Or get headphones

 

[Spocko]

Who told you good room acoustic treatment is cheap? If you're not a good woodworker or have a decent shop at home for diy, count on emptying the wallet.

True, you could overspend on room treatment. But my response was assuming that you were debating between paying let's say $500 for a full featured DAC from Topping and $1,000 for a more expensive DAC with the exact same features - either way you're out the extra $500 right? So my suggestion would be to buy the Topping and apply the $500 savings on acoustic treatment (rather than expensive cables, wiring, etc.). I have found products from GIK Acoustics and Sonitus to be quite reasonable. I like GIK because their acoustic panels both diffuse and absorb, and this is important in smaller rooms; I like Sonitus because I get slightly thicker panels to absorb lower frequencies for a similar price - here are links to both plus Next Generation Acoustics which I also like due to more customizable sizes (no these are not affiliate links, just sharing my experiences):

• GIK
• Sonitus
• NGA (I use these more expensive 3.5" thick panels for my home theater to maximize immersion by absorbing potential reflections that would otherwise wreck havoc on ambient spatial cues)

$500 is easily more than enough to treat any small room and will make an audible difference in medium sized room even (remember you only need to treat 15% of exposed hard maybe less, and bass traps are always helpful if you don't use bass management software). I personally like free standing 4 feet panels that I can quickly move around, place and not worry about adjusting for ear level height. I also appreciate the magnetic tabs used by Sonitus, quite ingenius!

 

[Spocko]

View attachment 115448
Big reason why outdoor concert are so mush better.

Or get headphones

Not just any headphones but Bose Quietcomfort 35 II, right?

 

[wwenze]

Big reason why outdoor concert are so mush better.

Or get headphones

Do the outdoor concert speakers need to follow Harman curve?

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Do the outdoor concert speakers need to follow Harman curve?

No. They have their own set of problems. There are no walls, but the audience is spread out over an extended area. The difficulties are in managing area. Much effort goes into this.
The front of house mixer is listening to the same speakers as the audience, so there is, in principle, no circle of confusion. Any equalisation curve in effect is, by definition, part of the artistic expression and not intrinsic to the technology.
Of course years of damaging sound levels, substance abuse, and the general rigours of life on the road may mean that the FOH mixer is a near deaf idiot. YMMV.

 

[Rottmannash]

No. They have their own set of problems. There are no walls, but the audience is spread out over an extended area. The difficulties are in managing area. Much effort goes into this.
The front of house mixer is listening to the same speakers as the audience, so there is, in principle, no circle of confusion. Any equalisation curve in effect is, by definition, part of the artistic expression and not intrinsic to the technology.
Of course years of damaging sound levels, substance abuse, and the general rigours of life on the road may mean that the FOH mixer is a near deaf idiot. YMMV.

It's funny you say that-a couple years ago we sat underneath some monitors that had been mounted under the overhang at The Ryman on the floor-they were bolted to the underside of the balcony. It was a Gov't Mule concert. Great night but whoever had control over those monitors didn't know what they were doing-the gentleman beside us had his young daughter with him and they got up 4-5 times during the concert to shove toilet paper in their ears, her particularly. I wasn't terribly worried about the decibel level but was concerned over the distortion-especially high frequency distortion. It was absolutely painful at times, depending on the instrument and other variables. I said something to an usher at one point but nothing was done. My ears rang for days afterward and since then I have tinnitus. I hate that I didn't ask more forcefully for them to turn those down-the ridiculous part was we were probably 60 feet from the stage so speakers mounted under the balcony were unnecessary-the volume from the PA and from the amps on stage were plenty. Not sure why they even have those. Normally The Ryman has some of the best sound around but that night it was terrible due to the overdriven monitor above our heads. I walked around a bit, even walking up toward the stage once and the sound was sublime-only where we were sitting was it atrocious. I hope that little girl doesn't have permanent hearing loss.

 

[welsh]

No. They have their own set of problems. There are no walls, but the audience is spread out over an extended area. The difficulties are in managing area. Much effort goes into this.
The front of house mixer is listening to the same speakers as the audience, so there is, in principle, no circle of confusion. Any equalisation curve in effect is, by definition, part of the artistic expression and not intrinsic to the technology.
Of course years of damaging sound levels, substance abuse, and the general rigours of life on the road may mean that the FOH mixer is a near deaf idiot. YMMV.

When I played in a punk band in 1978, the guy on the mixing desk was always a stoned hippy.