Is this a USB 1.0 or 2.0 cable?

[Chiru]

Hey

 

I was wondering it his is a USB 1.0 or 2.0 cable http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/pcaudio/usb_cable_01.html

 

Or does it just depend on the device itself and not the cable? I mean would i be able to maximize USB 2.0 data transferrate (480 Mbit/s) with this cable or just 12 mb/s?

 

Best regards

[Mira Yurizaki]

It depends on the device moreso than the cable because both use the same number of connections.

[rice guru]

18 hours ago, Chiru said:

Hey

 

I was wondering it his is a USB 1.0 or 2.0 cable http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/pcaudio/usb_cable_01.html

 

Or does it just depend on the device itself and not the cable? I mean would i be able to maximize USB 2.0 data transferrate (480 Mbit/s) with this cable or just 12 mb/s?

 

Best regards

pretty sure digital cables dont really matter in audio.there have been numerous tests testing whether an amazon basics cable or a premium audio cable has any auditory or measured differences. and the results have been pretty conclusive on it being no. the only time I've ever heard cables make a difference is when someone uses 8 core or 16 core cables or silver or copper to transfer analog signals from an amp to  a speaker. 

 

just writing this in case you are buying and overpriced cable. 

[Spuriae]

All USB 1 cables are also USB 2 cables since they use the same conductors, with the exception of a tiny subset of galvanically isolated cables which cannot perform the USB 2.0 high-speed detection handshake. This cable is a boring normal USB cable which does USB 2.0 just fine – but so will most other reasonably well-made USB cables.

[Derkoli]

18 hours ago, Chiru said:

Hey

 

I was wondering it his is a USB 1.0 or 2.0 cable http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/pcaudio/usb_cable_01.html

 

Or does it just depend on the device itself and not the cable? I mean would i be able to maximize USB 2.0 data transferrate (480 Mbit/s) with this cable or just 12 mb/s?

 

Best regards

Don't buy one of those. Digital audio gets no gains from high end cables, only analogue audio does (RCA cables, speaker cables, etc.) Digital audio gets no gains from high end cables compared to cheapy one. With digital cables, it either works or it doesnt.

[Derkoli]

18 hours ago, Chiru said:

Hey

 

I was wondering it his is a USB 1.0 or 2.0 cable http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/pcaudio/usb_cable_01.html

 

Or does it just depend on the device itself and not the cable? I mean would i be able to maximize USB 2.0 data transferrate (480 Mbit/s) with this cable or just 12 mb/s?

 

Best regards

Also, the cable is 1.0, not even 2.0 lol.

[rice guru]

1 minute ago, Derkoli said:

Also, the cable is 1.0, not even 2.0 lol.

yeah makes it basically useless in this day and age.

[Chiru]

On 7/9/2019 at 5:55 PM, Nimrodor said:

All USB 1 cables are also USB 2 cables since they use the same conductors, with the exception of a tiny subset of galvanically isolated cables which cannot perform the USB 2.0 high-speed detection handshake. This cable is a boring normal USB cable which does USB 2.0 just fine – but so will most other reasonably well-made USB cables.

You have no idea how this cable is made, it's made in Japan, it has upocc-a solid copper conductors, its pretty expensive to manuifacture such a cable, i am getting it for a bargain price of 120 bucks.

 

On 7/9/2019 at 4:07 AM, rice guru said:

pretty sure digital cables dont really matter in audio.there have been numerous tests testing whether an amazon basics cable or a premium audio cable has any auditory or measured differences. and the results have been pretty conclusive on it being no. the only time I've ever heard cables make a difference is when someone uses 8 core or 16 core cables or silver or copper to transfer analog signals from an amp to  a speaker. 

 

just writing this in case you are buying and overpriced cable. 

That is actually not true.

 

I am using an USB isolator which cleans the USB signal and it makes a remarkable difference on the sound. It's not even a high-fi device, it's purpose is for scientifc and medical use to get precise measurements etc. That already means that the USB cable makes a difference, because a well insulated cable with good conductors will carry less noise and interferance.

 

You are talking from a theoretical point of view, which is fine, but i doubt you have ever blind tested it, there are a lot of reviews out there that confirm that it makes a difference. With a lot of reviews, i mean a lot, i doubt that everyone of these reports are biasd. 

 

99% of folks who say it doesnt make a difference haven't compared it, they are so convinced that there is no difference that they wont even take into consideration doing comparisons or blind tests. 

 

I will buy the cable, double blind test it with 6 (me included) people that don't even know what USB is  and report back. 

 

I bought a PS Audio AC-12 power cable for my amp, which costs nearly 1000usd retail 2nd hand for a 100usd and it made a heck of a difference, i've blind tested it only with my mother so far, but will try to do it with more people.

 

[rice guru]

1 hour ago, Chiru said:

You have no idea how this cable is made, it's made in Japan, it has upocc-a solid copper conductors, its pretty expensive to manuifacture such a cable, i am getting it for a bargain price of 120 bucks.

 

That is actually not true.

 

I am using an USB isolator which cleans the USB signal and it makes a remarkable difference on the sound. It's not even a high-fi device, it's purpose is for scientifc and medical use to get precise measurements etc. That already means that the USB cable makes a difference, because a well insulated cable with good conductors will carry less noise and interferance.

 

You are talking from a theoretical point of view, which is fine, but i doubt you have ever blind tested it, there are a lot of reviews out there that confirm that it makes a difference. With a lot of reviews, i mean a lot, i doubt that everyone of these reports are biasd. 

 

99% of folks who say it doesnt make a difference haven't compared it, they are so convinced that there is no difference that they wont even take into consideration doing comparisons or blind tests. 

 

I will buy the cable, double blind test it with 6 (me included) people that don't even know what USB is  and report back. 

 

I bought a PS Audio AC-12 power cable for my amp, which costs nearly 1000usd retail 2nd hand for a 100usd and it made a heck of a difference, i've blind tested it only with my mother so far, but will try to do it with more people.

 

Whatever makes you happy my guy keep telling yourself that and I'll sit here with the money I didn't over spend  in my pocket 

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, Chiru said:

You have no idea how this cable is made, it's made in Japan, it has upocc-a solid copper conductors, its pretty expensive to manuifacture such a cable, i am getting it for a bargain price of 120 bucks.

 

That is actually not true.

 

I am using an USB isolator which cleans the USB signal and it makes a remarkable difference on the sound. It's not even a high-fi device, it's purpose is for scientifc and medical use to get precise measurements etc. That already means that the USB cable makes a difference, because a well insulated cable with good conductors will carry less noise and interferance.

 

You are talking from a theoretical point of view, which is fine, but i doubt you have ever blind tested it, there are a lot of reviews out there that confirm that it makes a difference. With a lot of reviews, i mean a lot, i doubt that everyone of these reports are biasd. 

 

99% of folks who say it doesnt make a difference haven't compared it, they are so convinced that there is no difference that they wont even take into consideration doing comparisons or blind tests. 

 

I will buy the cable, double blind test it with 6 (me included) people that don't even know what USB is  and report back. 

 

I bought a PS Audio AC-12 power cable for my amp, which costs nearly 1000usd retail 2nd hand for a 100usd and it made a heck of a difference, i've blind tested it only with my mother so far, but will try to do it with more people.

 

*cough* power cables is analogue.. its AC.. and i personally have compared them so. I do have a mcintosh MA9000 + Schiit yggdrasil DAC, so my system is pretty resolving. There is 0 difference between an amazon basics optical cable, and a quantum fused liquid nitrogen cyrogenic fuck-your wallet treated optical cable.

And oh wow. Solid copper conductors..

Its the placebo affect again, because its expensive, it must be better right?

[Derkoli]

Also im pretty sure digital signals dont get interference..

[Chiru]

https://mcru.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ohno.pdf

 

I will explain more later

[Spuriae]

32 minutes ago, Chiru said:

You have no idea how this cable is made, it's made in Japan, it has upocc-a solid copper conductors, its pretty expensive to manuifacture such a cable, i am getting it for a bargain price of 120 bucks.

I know how expensive it is to make a solid OCC cable, do the tooling for custom connectors, and such. I respect the engineering that's put into making near-perfect cables, especially Tara Labs and Shunyata. I'm unconvinced that it makes any practical difference. Functionally it's still a normal USB cable, even moreso nowadays given that any USB interface worth talking about is going to be asynchronous.

38 minutes ago, Chiru said:

I am using an USB isolator which cleans the USB signal and it makes a remarkable difference on the sound. It's not even a high-fi device, it's purpose is for scientifc and medical use to get precise measurements etc.

If you're using an ADUM4160-based isolator (the only USB isolator I can think of that might be used in a medical setting), the cable question doesn't matter; it can only do USB 1.1 full speed anyways. And yes, under a handful of specific conditions, it can meaningfully improve the signal.

40 minutes ago, Chiru said:

That already means that the USB cable makes a difference, because a well insulated cable with good conductors will carry less noise and interferance.

How does the fact that galvanic isolation prevents ground loops and provides circuit protections imply that a cable with better insulation will be any better?

1 hour ago, Chiru said:

You are talking from a theoretical point of view, which is fine, but i doubt you have ever blind tested it, there are a lot of reviews out there that confirm that it makes a difference. With a lot of reviews, i mean a lot, i doubt that everyone of these reports are biasd.

I've yet to see a valid blind test confirming the difference or measurements showing any. And every listener has a bias to believe that changes make things sound better; after all, that's what everyone's looking for. Doesn't mean that there is any. Harman has pretty well established that people hear what they want to hear in sighted tests – and this is with trained audio professionals.

1 hour ago, Chiru said:

I will buy the cable, double blind test it with 6 (me included) people that don't even know what USB is  and report back.

How exactly will you be switching the cable to make the double blind test valid?

1 hour ago, Derkoli said:

Also im pretty sure digital signals dont get interference..

Your image is for stranded, which is different from a solid conductor. They're different enough that there's a valid argument to be made for one over the other depending on the situation.

 

Digital signals can and do often suffer interference; that's part of the reason why USB uses differential conductors. It's unlikely that any interference could actually make its way to the DAC with a modern async interface, but it was possible in the past for older versions of USB audio to have artifacts.

40 minutes ago, Chiru said:

https://mcru.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ohno.pdf

 

I will explain more later

OCC is super cool, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't matter. Never mind that because of the nature of electron drift the grain boundaries don't make much of a difference for anything, or that PCB's are made of copper much less pure than even "oxygen-free", or that solder, crimping, and electrical contacts represent much larger boundaries than the grain boundaries in the copper...

 

...how exactly is copper with more grain boundaries supposed to degrade a signal? The only good argument that can really be made is that higher resistance might increase the effects of stray capacitance, but again the material properties are so marginally different that you'd be better off just getting a thicker wire of cheap copper (or, because of the skin effect, using a stranded instead of a solid conductor – but that would defeat the whole point of OCC, as far as the marketing blurb would have you believe).

 

Or is the argument that a near-ideal resistor of negligible value will have any sort of audible impact in a circuit?

[Derkoli]

1 minute ago, Nimrodor said:

I know how expensive it is to make a solid OCC cable, do the tooling for custom connectors, and such. I respect the engineering that's put into making near-perfect cables, especially Tara Labs and Shunyata. I'm unconvinced that it makes any practical difference. Functionally it's still a normal USB cable, even moreso nowadays given that any USB interface worth talking about is going to be asynchronous.

If you're using an ADUM4160-based isolator (the only USB isolator I can think of that might be used in a medical setting), the cable question doesn't matter; it can only do USB 1.1 full speed anyways. And yes, under a handful of specific conditions, it can meaningfully improve the signal.

How does the fact that galvanic isolation prevents ground loops and provides circuit protections imply that a cable with better insulation will be any better?

I've yet to see a valid blind test confirming the difference or measurements showing any. And every listener has a bias to believe that changes make things sound better; after all, that's what everyone's looking for. Doesn't mean that there is any. Harman has pretty well established that people hear what they want to hear in sighted tests – and this is with trained audio professionals.

How exactly will you be switching the cable to make the double blind test valid?

Your image is for stranded, which is different from a solid conductor. They're different enough that there's a valid argument to be made for one over the other depending on the situation.

 

Digital signals can and do often suffer interference; that's part of the reason why USB uses differential conductors. It's unlikely that any interference could actually make its way to the DAC with a modern async interface, but it was possible in the past for older versions of USB audio to have artifacts.

OCC is super cool, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't matter. Never mind that because of the nature of electron drift the grain boundaries don't make much of a difference for anything, or that PCB's are made of copper much less pure than even "oxygen-free", or that solder, crimping, and electrical contacts represent much larger boundaries than the grain boundaries in the copper...

 

...how exactly is copper with more grain boundaries supposed to degrade a signal? The only good argument that can really be made is that higher resistance might increase the effects of stray capacitance, but again the material properties are so marginally different that you'd be better off just getting a thicker wire of cheap copper (or, because of the skin effect, using a stranded instead of a solid conductor – but that would defeat the whole point of OCC, as far as the marketing blurb would have you believe).

 

Or is the argument that a near-ideal resistor of negligible value will have any sort of audible impact in a circuit?

IK Digital does get interference but its so low it's not audible if you dont have a group loop issue.

[Chiru]

17 hours ago, Derkoli said:

IK Digital does get interference but its so low it's not audible if you dont have a group loop issue.

Sorry but here you are mistaken. 

 

A sound signal coming from a PC is like water.

 

Depending where you live tap water tastes better or worse, in some cities it tastes better than in others, you can't necessarely taste the things that make the water of worse quality, but once everything has been filtered out, and you have perfectly clean water the difference will be night and day. Someone might not realize that the water he is drinking is just of average quality because he has never tasted better water.

 

A USB signal gets polluted by all the electrical noise that gets generated inside a computer, the noise mixes itself with your audio signal, when you listen to the music you are listening to the noise and the music. To get rid of the noise, well designed DAC's have usually filters in place, but depending on the DAC and/or the amount of pollution it might not be enough, we could also say that a dedicated device will do a much better job at it. Also it's much better to prevent the noise to enter the DAC in the first place. How much of a differemce you will hear depends on the amount of pollution and your DAC and amplifier how well they filter it out. A USB isolator, regenerates (recycles) the signal to gets rid of all the electrical interferance, so that only the signal in it's purest form remains.

 

That usually makes for a more airier sound, clearer, less crunchy, more layered and with a blacker backround.

 

Of course, when the isolator is powered by an external power supply that also induces noise, that's why i a well designed isolator should use a power supply that generates as little noise as possible (medical grade for instance)  and on top of that the isolator should have filters in place, to stop the noise from entering the isolator and stopping it from getting transfered to the DAC and then in to the amplifier.

 

The same concept also applies to a DAC, a well designed DAC should have a power supply which should generate as minimum noise as possible, in a seperate compartment with filters in place.

 

On the other hand when you have a ground loop you will hear a buzzing noise even when no music is running, it's a different thing.

 

Watch this video:

 

17 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

How exactly will you be switching the cable to make the double blind test valid?

 

Family will come over tomorrow, so we will be 6 people total, i will be setting up the test in my room, i will let everyone listen to the same song twice, once with one cable and a second time with a different cable, with matching volume, they won't know which cable is powering the amp. Actually, i won't even tell them that the amp is running of 2 different cables, i will just tell them that they will listen to a song twice. When they are finished, i will ask them if they did hear differences, what kind of differences and which they liked better..

 

Only one person at a time will listen to the music, once one person i done, i will call another person in to the room, nobody is allowed to talk about it until everyone has listened to both cables and told me about their experiences. 

 

Of course, i will know of which cable the music is running, but that wont be of any relevance, i wont be hearing the music (headphones), i will only press play, leave the room for 5 minutes and then come back swap the cables, leave again. 

 

21 hours ago, rice guru said:

Whatever makes you happy my guy keep telling yourself that and I'll sit here with the money I didn't over spend  in my pocket 

Cmon, you have never even made a comparison between an of the shelf USB cable and a well made one, let alone a blind test. 

 

Of course, if you want to base your decision wheter you want to buy one or not on measurements done by "experts" or people in the internet, that's your right and it#s understandable that you don't want to spend money on something you don't have proof that it will make a difference. However, you will never really know if there is a sonic improvent unless you have actually tried it.

 

 

[Chiru]

10 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

f you're using an ADUM4160-based isolator (the only USB isolator I can think of that might be used in a medical setting),

What?

 

Most USB isolators are developed for usage in medical and laboratory settings, control engineering, automotive industry, measurement tecnology and systems. 

 

But of course, i am sure you know it better than technicians working in those fields if a USB isolator is needed or not and if it works or not. Also i don't think those are the kind of clientel you can bullshit, i am pretty sure the manufacturers of those devices are aware of that and are not trying to sell snake oil. 

 

Here is an articel that explains it, translated with google from german,

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elv.ch%2FUSB-galvanisch-getrennt-USB-Isolator-UI-100%2Fx.aspx%2Fcid_726%2Fdetail_30743

 

 

[rice guru]

4 hours ago, Chiru said:

Sorry but here you are mistaken. 

 

A sound signal coming from a PC is like cream.

 

If you mix cream with strawberry sauce and you eat it you are tasting both things at the same time, The cream is your music, strawberry sauce is the noise. Once it's mixed you need something that cleans your cream from the strawberry sauce and when your cream is completly clean and free of strawberry sauce you will taste the difference.

 

But if you only ever ate cream contaminated by strawberry sauce and you are not aware of that, you will never know what pure cream tastes like.

 A more realistic example would be water, depending where you live water tastes differently, here in Switzerland, depending where of course, tap water is very good, but in other countries maybe not so much. In italy in several regions/areas tap water is of really bad quality and only drink bottled water. 

 

A USB signal gets polluted by all the electrical noise that gets generated inside a computer, the noise mixes itself with your audio signal, when you listen to the music you are listening to the noise and the music. To get rid of the noise, well designed DAC's have usually filters in place, but depending on the DAC and/or the amount of pollution it might not be enough, we could also say that a dedicated device will do a much better job at it. Also it's much better to prevent the noise to enter the DAC in the first place. How much of a differemce you will hear depends on the amount of pollution and your DAC and amplifier how well they filter it out. A USB isolator, regenerates (recycles) the signal to get rid of all the electrical interferance. 

 

Of course, when the isolator is powered by an external power supply that also induces noise, that's why i a well designed isolator should use a power supply that generates as little noise as possible (medical grade for instance)  and on top of that the isolator should have filters in place, to stop the noise from entering the isolator and stopping it from getting transfered to the DAC and then in to the amplifier.

 

The same concept also applies to a DAC, a well designed DAC should have a power supply which should generate as minimum noise as possible, in a seperate compartment with filters in place.

 

On the other hand when you have a ground loop you will hear a buzzing noise even when no music is running, it's a different thing.

 

Watch this video:

 

 

Family will come over tomorrow, so we will be 6 people total, i will be setting up the test in my room, i will let everyone listen to the same song twice, once with one cable and a second time with a different cable, with matching volume, they won't know which cable is powering the amp. Actually, i won't even tell them that the amp is running of 2 different cables, i will just tell them that they will listen to a song twice. When they are finished, i will ask them if they did hear differences, what kind of differences and which they liked better..

 

Only one person at a time will listen to the music, once one person i done, i will call another person in to the room, nobody is allowed to talk about it until everyone has listened to both cables and told me about their experiences. 

 

Of course, i will know of which cable the music is running, but that wont be of any relevance, i wont be hearing the music (headphones), i will only press play, leave the room for 5 minutes and then come back swap the cables, leave again. 

 

Cmon, you have never even made a comparison between an of the shelf USB cable and a well made one, let alone a blind test. 

 

Of course, if you want to base your decision wheter you want to buy one or not on measurements done by "experts" or people in the internet, that's your right and it#s understandable that you don't want to spend money on something you don't have proof that it will make a difference. However, you will never really know if there is a sonic improvent unless you have actually tried it.

 

 

Even if I were to believe you I doubt any difference is worth the money you are spemdimg on it. I'm personally a hobbiest not a pro and the biggest upgrade in sound from my experience is the drivers themselves not cable quality, not the DAC, not the amp but the thing that delivers the sound.

[Chiru]

3 hours ago, rice guru said:

Even if I were to believe you I doubt any difference is worth the money you are spemdimg on it. I'm personally a hobbiest not a pro and the biggest upgrade in sound from my experience is the drivers themselves not cable quality, not the DAC, not the amp but the thing that delivers the sound.

Well of course its not worth to spend 1000 bucks on a cable, but you can get good deals 2nd hand, i payed my Audio Quest King Cobra Rca's 70usd, once you have a good amp, a good dac you are not planning on upgrading cables make quite a bit of difference but not worth spending more than 150 bucks average on a cable.

 

Of course if you spend 150 bucks each on 3 cables, 450 bucks total, a 450usd more expensive headphone makes a bigger difference. But if you have a good and revealing system it becomes worth it.

 

But why don't you try once? You can always send the cable back and PayPal now offers to cover return shipping costs up to 12times a year. 

[Vandey]

5 hours ago, rice guru said:

Of course, i will know of which cable the music is running, but that wont be of any relevance, i wont be hearing the music (headphones), i will only press play, leave the room for 5 minutes and then come back swap the cables, leave again.

That's not a double blind test then if you know which cable is which... A double blind is where neither the tester (observer A.K.A. you) or testee (subject A.K.A. your family member) know what is what until after the test has concluded. What you're going to do is a single blind test.

 

IMHO Also average people that don't have any professional audio experience probably aren't the best crowd to be testing this on. Also, playing a whole song back to back is a lot for someone to listen to to determine what they think sounds better. Probably a 5 or 10 second clip would be better so they can really compare the two would be better.

[rice guru]

2 hours ago, Chiru said:

Well of course its not worth to spend 1000 bucks on a cable, but you can get good deals 2nd hand, i payed my Audio Quest King Cobra Rca's 70usd, once you have a good amp, a good dac you are not planning on upgrading cables make quite a bit of difference but not worth spending more than 150 bucks average on a cable.

 

Of course if you spend 150 bucks each on 3 cables, 450 bucks total, a 450usd more expensive headphone makes a bigger difference. But if you have a good and revealing system it becomes worth it.

 

But why don't you try once? You can always send the cable back and PayPal now offers to cover return shipping costs up to 12times a year. 

Look at my setup my DAC is literally worth as much as the cable. Out of all the guys on this thread I probably have a cheapest setup closer to budget than enthusiast

[rice guru]

7 minutes ago, Vandey said:

That's not a double blind test then if you know which cable is which... A double blind is where neither the tester (observer A.K.A. you) or testee (subject A.K.A. your family member) know what is what until after the test has concluded. What you're going to do is a single blind test.

 

Also average people that don't have any professional audio experience probably aren't the best crowd to be testing this on.

Qouted the wrong guy my guy

[Vandey]

4 minutes ago, rice guru said:

Wouted the wrong guy my guy

Sorry didn't scroll up far enough, but I meant to quote Chiru

[Spuriae]

4 hours ago, Chiru said:

What?

 

Most USB isolators are developed for usage in medical and laboratory settings, control engineering, automotive industry, measurement tecnology and systems. 

 

But of course, i am sure you know it better than technicians working in those fields if a USB isolator is needed or not and if it works or not. Also i don't think those are the kind of clientel you can bullshit, i am pretty sure the manufacturers of those devices are aware of that and are not trying to sell snake oil. 

 

Here is an articel that explains it, translated with google from german,

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elv.ch%2FUSB-galvanisch-getrennt-USB-Isolator-UI-100%2Fx.aspx%2Fcid_726%2Fdetail_30743

...that's an ADUM4160-based device. I'm familiar with this chip and have designed with it before. As the article says, it provides galvanic isolation and overvoltage protection. Again, how exactly does the fact that galvanic isolation can prevent ground loops imply that a boutique USB cable will be better than a normal one?

 

6 hours ago, Chiru said:

Family will come over tomorrow, so we will be 6 people total, i will be setting up the test in my room, i will let everyone listen to the same song twice, once with one cable and a second time with a different cable, with matching volume, they won't know which cable is powering the amp. Actually, i won't even tell them that the amp is running of 2 different cables, i will just tell them that they will listen to a song twice. When they are finished, i will ask them if they did hear differences, what kind of differences and which they liked better..

 

Only one person at a time will listen to the music, once one person i done, i will call another person in to the room, nobody is allowed to talk about it until everyone has listened to both cables and told me about their experiences. 

 

Of course, i will know of which cable the music is running, but that wont be of any relevance, i wont be hearing the music (headphones), i will only press play, leave the room for 5 minutes and then come back swap the cables, leave again.

What you've described is not a valid double blind test. See section 3B and 4A of this Linear Audio article by SY.

 

6 hours ago, Chiru said:

A USB signal gets polluted by all the electrical noise that gets generated inside a computer, the noise mixes itself with your audio signal, when you listen to the music you are listening to the noise and the music.

The whole point of the digital abstraction is that if the noise is significantly smaller than the signal, it will be rejected in its entirety. And with most USB interfaces using their own local clocks, timing noise is also rejected.

 

USB power noise and ground loops are valid entry points for noise, but these are entirely separate from the digital signal.

6 hours ago, Chiru said:

To get rid of the noise, well designed DAC's have usually filters in place, but depending on the DAC and/or the amount of pollution it might not be enough, we could also say that a dedicated device will do a much better job at it. Also it's much better to prevent the noise to enter the DAC in the first place. How much of a differemce you will hear depends on the amount of pollution and your DAC and amplifier how well they filter it out.

Noise on the signal itself, no. Power noise? Mayyybe – but a DAC using its own power supply and good grounding practices should be completely unaffected. Noise on the signal lines will not make its way into the analog output as long as everything is operating within USB spec. And if your amplifier is filtering noise within the audible band – well, something's wrong with your amplifier. It's not supposed to do that.

 

8 hours ago, Chiru said:

A USB isolator, regenerates (recycles) the signal to get rid of all the electrical interferance.

 

Of course, when the isolator is powered by an external power supply that also induces noise, that's why i a well designed isolator should use a power supply that generates as little noise as possible (medical grade for instance)  and on top of that the isolator should have filters in place, to stop the noise from entering the isolator and stopping it from getting transfered to the DAC and then in to the amplifier.

Nope. Galvanic isolation. Just comparators and a signal transformer; no filters. You can see how the isolator works in the datasheet. The schmitt triggers reject noise just as well as most any other digital interface; it's all voltage thresholds.

 

There are isolators that do fully regenerate the signal. Normal people call them USB hubs.

 

Medical grade (IEC 60601) is a safety standard for the most part. The only noise requirement is 10% ripple, which is far worse than any reasonable commercial product would be expected to do.

 

~~~

 

I don't doubt that certain more expensive cable construction techniques produce cables that conduct the signal more accurately; there are plenty of valid physical justifications for those. The issue is that these differences are miniscule, many many orders of magnitude removed from anything that could flip a bit or produce an audible analog sound in any reasonably constructed system.

 

It's unreasonable to expect people to personally try something out when there's zero proof that it does anything and physics overwhelmingly says it shouldn't do anything. One could also make the argument that painting your cables different colors makes a sonic difference and that you're closed-minded for not blind testing it yourself – and neither side would be more valid than the other.

 

[rice guru]

19 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

 

 

It's unreasonable to expect people to personally try something out when there's zero proof that it does anything 

 

EXACTLY!!everything yall been saying is way above my pay grade. but  here is one thing i will say the reason I believe a $100 kadas tone board is better than the $!00 schiit modi 3 or the topping d30 is because their are measurements hat have been conducted by both people who make them and the poeple who own them to prove that they are different and the khadas is better or dacs making a signicfican difference in general. the reason I believe in certain amps being more powerful and overall cleaner than one another is because their is proof and measurements provided to me proving certain facts about those amps. but I have yet to see any concrete proof aside from people saying  " you need to try it yourself" that a better usb cable will make any audible difference. if you can link me measurements  and graphs from multiple sources then maybe i will be enclined to get on your side but so far all you have linked me are how these cables are made and materials used that may as well be marketing material. I need numbers.

[Chiru]

8 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

Nope. Galvanic isolation. Just comparators and a signal transformer; no filters. You can see how the isolator works in the datasheet. The schmitt triggers reject noise just as well as most any other digital interface; it's all voltage thresholds.

 

There are isolators that do fully regenerate the signal. Normal people call them USB hubs.

 

Medical grade (IEC 60601) is a safety standard for the most part. The only noise requirement is 10% ripple, which is far worse than any reasonable commercial product would be expected to do.

i