I think they know how to price things fine, and as long as there are so many non-technically minded potential customers out there who remain ignorant they can have a field day.
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Do USB Cables Make an Audible Difference (Kimber Kable Review)?
- Thread starter amirm
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Marutks
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Did you watch the latest Passion 4 Sound video? Did it convince anyone that USB cables are different?
I am not sure myself and I am more confused about cables now.
I bought two Audioquest USB cables because that is what Audirvana support suggested. They said Audirvana can't play DSD 256 because my USB cables are not good enough. Those Audioquest cables didn't make any difference. Zero ! And they don't sound any better than generic USB cables that were supplied with my DACs.
I am not sure myself and I am more confused about cables now.
I bought two Audioquest USB cables because that is what Audirvana support suggested. They said Audirvana can't play DSD 256 because my USB cables are not good enough. Those Audioquest cables didn't make any difference. Zero ! And they don't sound any better than generic USB cables that were supplied with my DACs.
I'm surprised Audirvana suggested you buy Audioquest cables.
Seriously? They said that?
Better than what? A failed USB cable?
After all, the only USB cable that can be 'improved upon' is a non functioning one.
Posts about electronics used to be like posts about cables, until measuring equipment that could tell the difference started appearing.
Imagine people telling you how good their Audio-gd was.
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He did a lot of work but unfortunately the most fundamental thing wrong. That null tests are not what he thinks they are. I commented on it when he published the video and thankfully, Google is ranking it as the most useful response.
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Are you serious?? I just lost a lot of respect for him as a reviewer. I have tried to see things his way, such as all DACs sound different, cables make a difference, etc but cannot be bothered to make further effort.
Edit-Seems he didn't delete Amir's comment. Will reserve judgement...for now.
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As @amirm replied on the tube, there are differences in timing that are caused by the recording process that must be removed to accurately compare the capture to the original, which this video ignored. This must be done to a precision of 1/1000 or a smaller fraction of one sample, and not aligning on a single sample like in the video. Clocks between recordings also drift, and it's important to remove this difference when doing null comparison. DeltaWave takes all of these into account.
I recently did such a null comparison between a music track recorded through the same chain, once with a Phasure Lush^2 USB cable (about $250/40cm) and the other with a generic printer USB cable (free with printer). Take a listen at the null, difference between the two recordings at your normal listening level, just like in the video. The difference signal level is at around -94dBFS and is mostly due to dither application being different between the two recordings, not due to any differences in cables:
https://app.box.com/s/w62upza34qh1id83dzxiskxgk8ra155q
I also posted the result of the same comparison on measured jitter, as there were claims that noise on USB line affects jitter. Also, completely below any sort of audibility: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/do-usb-cables-make-an-audible-difference-kimber-kable-review.20778/post-696250
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Does Audioquest and Audirvana have a business relationship of some kind?
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It's not necessarily bs. If you used USB 1.1 or 1.0 you created the problem by using the wrong cables, and you should use better ones that are properly designed like USB 2.0 or after. If you used USB 2.0 in the first place they're wrong.
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Is there a dither application only different when you use two different cables, or is it different each time? The obvious way to solve this is a long chain of cables and see which chain deteriorates the least.
Dither is random, so it will be different even between two runs of the same cable. I can post the difference between two runs of the same cable -- it's at the same level as the one I posted above, so the expensive USB cable didn't do much to improve things.
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That's fine, I was just asking for a clarification. It seemed like something you wouldn't have overlooked.
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Audirvana suggested that or someone on their community forum which falls under their support link? I'm under the impression that Damien, the owner, is the sole developer and tech for his company. Perhaps he has an office account person, but I doubt much more than that.... Though I could be wrong, maybe he has hired a couple people?? Don't know..., all the help I've seen has come from knowledgeable users and occasionally Damien himself.
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