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

[Lambda]

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.

I can confirm this is 100% accurate.

 

[welsh]

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

No.

 

[GeorgeBynum]

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?

This is not an answer to your question, but I did (typically low frequency, never higher than 120 Hz) industrial data acquisition. One of my AD converters connects to my PC via USB. In electrically noisy (often multi-kW inverter based variable speed drives in operation) environments, the USB port would often "lock up" requiring reboot. The installation of small ferrite "filters" on the already short cables eliminated the problem.

 

[IowAudio]

According to this guy on YouTube Amirs test and measurements are no good... now I'm confused. This is what he responded to me with when I sent him Amir's video.

Highlighted reply
Passion for Sound
8 hours ago
Finished the video and there's one major problem. He's only measured the cables using a single 1kHz tone. Music is far more complex with rapid shifts up and down in the signal (and therefore the voltage on the wire). I'm still not clear on how or why cables make a difference, but checkout the video I have coming which aims to apply a different, music-based subjective test. Very keen to continue this conversation.

 

[MattHooper]

I sure would be interested in seeing Amir test a Shunyata AC cable. They make a lot of fuss about their science pedigrees. 'Course, who on ASR is going to actually own one to send him?

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Music is far more complex with rapid shifts up and down in the signal (and therefore the voltage on the wire).

Basically he has no clue what a USB cable is. What he describes is a simple analog interconnection, in which voltage is used to transmit audio as a direct analogue of the signal. (Hence the name.) Digital audio does not work like this, and digital audio encapsulated in USB even less so. The voltage on the wire of a USB interface represents the digital levels of the USB protocol. There is no meaningful correlation to the audio data payload.
This stuff is so basic as to be seriously worrying that anyone who thinks they understand what is going on could have such a fundamental misunderstanding.

 

[Rottmannash]

I had a rather unpleasant exchange with this reviewer after he made some disparaging comments about the E30. He basically said the fact it measured well didn't matter- that it just didn't sound very good. Then got into the "output stages have more to do with the sound of a DAC than the chip".

 

[Spocko]

I had a rather unpleasant exchange with this reviewer after he made some disparaging comments about the E30. He basically said the fact it measured well didn't matter- that it just didn't sound very good. Then got into the "output stages have more to do with the sound of a DAC than the chip".

He would totally fail a DB test no doubt. "Failure" defined by the inability to identify which sounds better, not necessarily different.

 

[zanzibar]

I had a rather unpleasant exchange with this reviewer after he made some disparaging comments about the E30. He basically said the fact it measured well didn't matter- that it just didn't sound very good. Then got into the "output stages have more to do with the sound of a DAC than the chip".

Subjectivity of the reviewer aside, way back in the day of the hifi urban shops, people would go to stores and hear all kinds of setups with piles of equipment stacked along the walls. The measurements bragged about their great low distortion numbers and one after another. The lit handed out provided glowing shiny glossy details.

Total Hamonic Distortion was always hailed. I recall in the late 90s I had purchases a Yamaha AX series integrated amplifier. It went for a good price back then and I liked it. When I upgraded my system to just mid-fi Rotel 200 watt amplifier, I kept the Yamaha around. One day the Rotel went south blowing a fuse. (I didn't know how easy it was to open the unit and replace the fuse).

So, out of the back room came back the Yamaha to match up with B&W 803 Nautilus speakers.
Can I describe to you how much it sounded like ass, destroyed by a midfi Rotel amplifier and preamp?
It totally sounded like ass. It was such a hard lousy sound, I found it hard to believe I kept it around.

I stole the line above from a recent interview from audio legend, Mike Moffat. He remarked about how equipment can be made to measure well but it's useless if it "sounds like ass."

Since Schiit is making some very good affordable gear and become a great American success story, all I can say is how true!

 

[NTK]

I stole the line above from a recent interview from audio legend, Mike Moffat. He remarked about how equipment can be made to measure well but it's useless if it "sounds like ass."

Since Schiit is making some very good affordable gear and become a great American success story, all I can say is how true!

Have you noticed that the new products Schiit introduced recently and were tested here have exemplary measured performance? Schiit also acquired an APx555 and started publishing their test reports.

So, is Schiit sacrificing "sound quality" now, and instead optimizing for measured performance?

 

[zanzibar]

Have you noticed that the new products Schiit introduced recently and were tested here have exemplary measured performance? Schiit also acquired an APx555 and started publishing their test reports.

So, is Schiit sacrificing "sound quality" now, and instead optimizing for measured performance?

My guess is there's no sacrifice at Schiit but the fight for reasonably priced excellent sounding audio gear.
They sure have made a big dent. Personally, I have several of their products and am amazed at the smart engineering with the quality audio for the price. One example, I have that rare gem Loki equalizer, something we all thought dead in audio. It's really great.

Been looking at their Freya + preamp too. Sounds like a bargain basement priced winner too. Gave up on expensive cables a while ago though. There's plenty of quality product for reasonable prices there. The only impact I've seen is on the power cable end. Power is a key in the audio chain if overstated. Everything is gear dependent too but power is a factor.

 

[Rottmannash]

My guess is there's no sacrifice at Schiit but the fight for reasonably priced excellent sounding audio gear.
They sure have made a big dent. Personally, I have several of their products and am amazed at the smart engineering with the quality audio for the price. One example, I have that rare gem Loki equalizer, something we all thought dead in audio. It's really great.

Been looking at their Freya + preamp too. Sounds like a bargain basement priced winner too. Gave up on expensive cables a while ago though. There's plenty of quality product for reasonable prices there. The only impact I've seen is on the power cable end. Power is a key in the audio chain if overstated. Everything is gear dependent too but power is a factor.

The Freya+ is a great example of their quality. Have one and it sounds incredible.

 

[Spocko]

Subjectivity of the reviewer aside, way back in the day of the hifi urban shops, people would go to stores and hear all kinds of setups with piles of equipment stacked along the walls. The measurements bragged about their great low distortion numbers and one after another. The lit handed out provided glowing shiny glossy details.

Total Hamonic Distortion was always hailed. I recall in the late 90s I had purchases a Yamaha AX series integrated amplifier. It went for a good price back then and I liked it. When I upgraded my system to just mid-fi Rotel 200 watt amplifier, I kept the Yamaha around. One day the Rotel went south blowing a fuse. (I didn't know how easy it was to open the unit and replace the fuse).

So, out of the back room came back the Yamaha to match up with B&W 803 Nautilus speakers.
Can I describe to you how much it sounded like ass, destroyed by a midfi Rotel amplifier and preamp?
It totally sounded like ass. It was such a hard lousy sound, I found it hard to believe I kept it around.

I stole the line above from a recent interview from audio legend, Mike Moffat. He remarked about how equipment can be made to measure well but it's useless if it "sounds like ass."

Since Schiit is making some very good affordable gear and become a great American success story, all I can say is how true!

This triggered another observation: it's shocking to me that instead of getting one solidly built integrated amp with Dirac Live (the modern day tone control), people are actually being told that it's better to buy different pieces of equipment to match different source/speakers/amplifiers! Really? You do not need two different speakers because some music is too sibilant while others aren't "airy" enough! With Dirac (Audyssey or Genelec SAM) you can just change the target curve to match your taste in music regardless of the gear's intended target curve. Get the most accurate/flat speakers you can afford plus a solid integrated amp with Dirac and suddenly you don't need multiple pieces of gear or exotic cables to add midbass or reduce sibilance - you just play with the FR curve to fit your room/taste/music.

 

[Jim777]

 

[pkane]

I've spent some time trying to measure differences between USB cables. Here's a jitter test between Lush^2 by Phasure and a generic printer cable. Using J-Test, I see Lush produce very slightly worse jitter levels than those produced by the printer cable, by about 1dB at -148dBFS level

Zooming in around 12k:

The outside two jitter spikes are caused by the 250Hz J-Test component, and the one closer to the fundamental are caused by 60Hz mains frequency.

Somehow I don't see Lush^2 doing anything to improve jitter.

 

[Ismapics]

This is a video digest of a few of my past reviews and measurements of various USB cables. Some of it dates back to 2017 which most of you probably have not seen:

Text versions:
Kimber Kable USB cable review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-high-end-usb-cables-make-a-difference.11272/

Difference between various generic USB cable: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/do-usb-audio-cables-make-a-difference.1887/

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I guess they are paying attention elsewhere where the pockets can get affected. See the reply from PS Audio regarding the USB interconnects.

 

[Ismapics]

I get all of that... but,

I disagree. In fact, I think that a whole lot of marketing is needed. Whether that marketing is from industry "experts" (i.e., PS Audio) or from graphic artists and their respective copy editors, I believe the influence of marketing is crucial to the substantiation and continuation of these companies claims.

I would really love to hear from the marketers. There is an aspect to this that marketers are manipulating.

As a marketer I can tell you that in an un-regulated industry such as High-end Audio you can stretch your claims to suit your product. You ca

I guess they are paying attention elsewhere where the pockets can get affected. See the reply from PS Audio regarding the USB interconnects. View attachment 117074

Well our friends from PS Audio responded. Which is actually good for them. TAKE A LOOK

 

[Ismapics]

As a marketer I can tell you that in an un-regulated industry such as High-end Audio you can stretch your claims to suit your product. You ca

Well our friends from PS Audio responded. Which is actually good for them. TAKE A LOOKView attachment 117203

One More Reply form PS AUDIO

 

[Marutks]

Here is another video from Passion for Sound.

An Objective Test of USB Cables for Audio - Supra, Oyaide, Wireworld

I am not a USB cables "believer" but there are differences in sound he recorded using different USB cables.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Surely it would be cheaper to simply buy a good DAC than buy a very expensive cable to solve problems which shouldn't be there on a bad one?

Marketing knows how to price better than you think.