As with most things, it depends … and there are a large number of variables at work … not the least of which is what constitutes an “audiophile grade” USB cable.
The influence of a USB cable can range from “doesn’t work reliably” to “works perfectly”.
And that influence can change radically in different systems (might work fine in one and not at all in another).
Specific qualitative differences, however … nothing that would be consistent or repeatable across different systems (or even, probably, different copies of the same system). But, say, the idea that a given USB cable has a specific tonal profile attributable to the cable itself is nonsense.
This is the focus of behavioral research, operant conditioning, and superstition. One can train lab rats and pigeons to do all sorts of nonsense because of the after-it-therefore-because-of-it logical fallacy.
“When I switched cables it sounded better to me” – never mind that they paid much closer attention due to the new item being added to the system.
I personally keep 2-3 of all sorts of standard cables around. Sometimes one will go bad and sometimes one works or sounds distinctly better than others. That’s a sign of an issue with a specific cable. Cables are probably the biggest scam in audio.
This x100000000000000 I actually ran out of likes for the day (I didnt know this was possible)
All my cables are purely for eye candy unless stated that the cable has intentional characteristics to change “something” … Other than that… the rest is BS.
There are only two mechanisms by which a USB cable can influence the behavior, or performance, of a USB audio chain.
The first is that it doesn’t reliably transmit the sample data (it would affect other parts of the frame too). There are many reasons this might be the case - but fundamentally they ALL either come down to the cable either being out of spec or faulty.
You don’t need anything special to discern if this is the case, as you’ll be getting obvious drop-outs or, if your DAC doesn’t mute on error, audible pops, clicks and other random transient artifacts.
System resolution doesn’t enter into it, as it’d be clear in even the most basic of setups.
And the second case involves the cable picking up EMI/RFI on the power lines and that being sufficiently strong to affect either the USB receiver or the DAC (or its analog output stage). In which case, the effects would be uncorrelated to the sample data or analog output anyway and if measurable or audible at all might result in some non-specific low-level hash. This says more about issues with the USB receiver or DAC implementation than it does the cable, however.
It’s worth noting that this level of EMI/RFI isn’t likely to be encountered in home situations absent wrapping the USB cable around a WiFi antenna or something.
Awee, you’re ruining my fun! I was about to suggest that only an Arista switch will give you the very best quality. Of course you won’t be able to hear anything over the noise of the switch, but you’ll only get perfect bits, and the price will make any serious audiophile feel right at home!
Funny thing about being out of spec. I have two USB cables, the Analysis Plus Purple and the Morrow Audio USB Reference. The Morrow Audio, I can pick up a bit more resolution and texture in the bass notes, and that’s what I used for the Chord Qutest. But when I upgraded to the Chord Hugo TT2, that Morrow Audio no longer works. My computer can’t recognize the TT2. It will, however, recognize the TT2 if I use the Analysis Plus Purple.
I contacted both Morrow Audio and Chord. Chord said they did an updated to the USB and sent me a free one, which still didn’t work. Chord said because the TT2 also pulls a bit of power through the USB on top of the power cable itself, not all USB cables work on the TT2.
Hugo TT2 and DAVE expect power on the USB VCC+/- lines to power the receiver side of the USB interface. That’s normal for isolated USB inputs.
I thought Qutest did too … but it may be powering the dirty side of the USB input from it’s other 5v supply, which would let it run without the VCC+/- lines connected and still be isolated.
Sounds like the Morrow Audio cable does not have VCC+/- lines connected, which is definitely out of spec. Not rare … it’ll stop source PSU noise from reaching the DAC (which isn’t an issue with the Chord DACs anyway, since they’re isolated). But not to spec.
Very interesting thread. As usual with EE-type content, I struggle to keep up, comprehend part of it (every little bit helps!).
Here’s my entirely unschooled, empiric take on USB audio:
– I’ve had 5 DACs in either/both of my desktop systems
– The 1st DAC (2006 vintage delta-sigma) sounded pretty bad. I’d never heard of a SPDIF convertor, but tried one (a 24/96 Musical Fidelity), and that + an optical cable into the DAC sounded significantly better
– Eventually I moved to a pricey silver coax cable instead of optical (Oyaide DR-510) & that was a big sonic upgrade (still use that cable w/a 24/192 MF converter)
– Each new DAC sounded better via USB than the last one, and certainly better than the 1st. But all 5 DACs sounded at least somewhat better via coax
– In my side system, I use a multibit DAC w/USB straight in. Sprung for a pricey USB cable (Lush USB Audio Cable), and that sounds pretty good. I keep meaning to try a SPDIF converter in place of USB, but am lazy…
I don’t have any paid streaming service (Tiday, Qobuz, Spotify) so never investigated ethernet/streaming audio. Maybe someday…
This seems to be the topic for USB talk so posting some findings here.
Isolating noise from USB. In my setup I am getting background noise coming through USB when using some of my tube amps. Many tube amps are sensitive to all kinds of interference and it also varies depending on which tubes are used. In this particular case I think it might be related to my computer being connected to an ungrounded outlet. The solution so far has been to:
Place my hand on the tube amp (noise gone)
or
Use an 18€ Olimex USB-ISO Isolator, the small black dongle on the right. Unfortunately the Olimex is only max 12 Mbps 24bit / 96KHz and only works on the low resolution SD USB input on Chord Hugo. But the noise is gone and I am happy until I find a better solution
You can start by checking to see if it carries the official USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum) logos for the cable type/spec it is supposed to be. You can also look up the vendor on the USB-IF membership list, though not all vendors do business under their primary trading name ( e.g. you’ll find Schiit listed as “Odeon, Inc. dba. Schiit audio”), and some use a parent entity.
That a cable isn’t made by a member of the USB-IF doesn’t mean it isn’t electrically/spec compliant however. It could be, it just isn’t necessarily certified or made by a company that participates in the IF program.
At which point, you’re down to testing.
There are three ways to do this … dedicated USB diagnostic tools, fiddly measurements with general purpose tools or an ad-hoc test where you use the cable to do a mass data-transfer (to an external storage device) and compare transfer times to a known good cable.
In this latter case, you need a clean external drive (freshly reformatted), a known good/to-spec USB cable, and the cable you want to test. Then you do a large transfer (let’s say 100 GB) and time it with the to-spec cable. Then you reformat the drive, reboot the computer, and retry the same transfer with the cable you want to test. If it performs notably slower then it is incurring checksum errors and data is being retransmitted (not possible with the UAC2 spec, but if transmission errors are happening in bulk-mode storage tests, it’s almost certainly happening your audio usage too).
You’d be surprised how many much-vaunted, expensive, “audiophile” cables make an embarrassingly complete hash of that transfer test.
FWIW, Supra cables are getting hyped (again) this year. They claim to merely use high quality materials and insulation. The brand is more costly than average Amazon stuff, but not crazy expensive.
The digital data comes from the computer via USB cable, which inputs signal to the SPDIF converter. Signal is then outputed (converted) via coax cable to the DAC du jour.
BTW, I’m on the verge of getting a 3rd SPDIF converter based on reviews (“Matrix X SPDIF 2 Femto Clock & Format Converter”).
When that comes in, I’ll sell my Wyred4Sound uLink converter–which is excellent, but because it uses an external PSU power, has trouble coexisting w/my apparently uneradicatable ground loop.
I’m no expert, but here’s what I understand from reading up on the subject:
Some SPDIF converters only convert the incoming digital signal from one digital format (ie, USB) to another (ie, coaxial), allowing one to use a favored (possibly only) digital input on the DAC. My Music Fidelity VLink 24/192 and Wyred4Sound uLink are examples of these. Their primary benefit for me is that I prefer the sound of digital coaxial input the all the DACs I’ve had vs USB input.
But other devices go further than just converting digital formats, and reclock the data stream before outputting it do the DAC in the preferred format. I don’t pretend to understand much about reclocking–but I do get that reclocking (if done competently) generally removes most of what little jitter there is on the incoming digital signal. Thus the bitstream outputted to the DAC will cause fewer timing errors in the DAC’s conversion of digital to analog. The illustratively named “Matrix X SPDIF 2 Femto Clock & Format Converter” that I’m about to order is an example of this type of converter.
All USB->S/PDIF converters have to do that, whether they brag about it or not, because USB audio is not synchronous. IOW, incoming USB audio packets are buffered and handed over to an S/PDIF transmitter driven by a clock so that the S/PDIF stream is clocked correctly.
So, I’m pretty poor and practically deaf. Notwithstanding I love music and had very sensitive ears for years before I lost 40% hearing in my left ear.
I decided recently to spend my last dying dollars on a headphone, dac, and amp. I have an iMac M1 which I use to stream stuff.
My audio equipment is a Chord Hugo TT2, a Sparkos Labs Aries amp, and a pair of Meze Elite headphones. The TT2 came with a usb b to usb a cable. I had an Apple A to C dongle in the drawer so I connected the usb cable to it since my Mac only takes USB C.
The sound was just ok. I was disappointed to say the least. I decided to buy an expensive AudioQuest B to C cable and removed the dongle. OMG, the system came alive with amazing resolution, dynamics, staging, and imaging. I was astonished that a cable change could make that much difference.
Am I nuts or do quality cables make that much difference?
Of course you won’t be able to hear anything over the noise of the switch, but you’ll only get perfect bits, and the price will make any serious audiophile feel right at home!
