No, they are not. Not many people will agree but based on my experience, absolutely. It’s not going to blow your mind but it is noticeable, and imo, worth the investment. With better USB cables, you mainly get a blacker background which lets you hear more detail. It also helps with glare making it less fatiguing to the ears. But I would suggest trying it out in your system first. If you hear a difference then great, if you don’t then that’s cool too.
Here are some suggestions that don’t break the bank (150-ish and below):
Shunyata Venom
Audioquest Carbon
Nordost Purple Flare
Supra USB 2.0
Supra USB 2.0 Excalibur
Cardas Clear
I’ve personally heard both Supras. For the regular one it has relaxed highs, is a bit intimate, and has a bit of a mid-bass boost. Warm and fatigue-free overall. For the Excalibur, it is generally a bit brighter but with a delicate touch. Nice stage, detail, and a slight sub-bass boost.
I invite you to try one for yourself and keep an open-mind.
Hope that helps!
I actually just inquired with Schiit on this exact issue. Here is their response that I received this morning via email, “Actually we recommend staying away from so-called “Audiophile” cables. Use a standard USB 2.0 cable 2 meters in length or less. We use Amazon basics or Mono price cables.” Straight from the horses mouth.
The Pyst/Straight Wire cables that Schiit sells are made in the US, if that makes any difference. I don’t think the Monoprice or Amazon Basics are but either is also a fine choice.
Ive had issues with some Monoprice USB cables not always being recognized by my home theatre gear but other cables Ive used from them have functioned well.
Arguably all the same. USB 2.0 spec is 5m / 16.4ft, USB 3.0 is 2m / 6.6ft
Edit: Ignore below, what I said is wrong but TL;DR; shit cable will be obvious
It’s just transferring 1’s and 0’s. There’s enough bandwidth there to handle the 0.0001% of errors as part of protocols that would autocorrect quicker than the human ear (or likely any measurement device) could perceive.
If the cable was so long that it did lose signal, it’d be blatantly obvious
Digital signals are not the same as analog signals.
Remember portable CD players? Shake them a little, and it’s not a degradation of sound but distortion / skipping.
While it will be obvious that a cable is horrible, there are still differences outside of outright errors in the digital domain. I am not an engineer and will not attempt to explain why or how, but I’ve heard the differences in better cables. They’re subtle, and not mind blowing, but definitely there. I suspect it’s largely something to do with the implementation of how power is transferred or shielded in the cable, as power definitely carries distortions that can infect your signal (particularly once analog gets involved), and USB cables do carry power.
In my experience long USB cables (certainly over 2 meters) are intermittently 100% accurate, and intermittently not. I’ve purchased USB extenders in the past to facilitate CD ripping with a portable player near my storage boxes as located away from a PC. CD ripping software can check for disc errors versus databases, so with a known good disc one can determine if and what went wrong over USB.
Sometimes USB extenders work perfectly, sometimes they generate numerous read errors, and sometimes they flat out fail. The error rate increases as the rip speed increases (i.e., higher quality discs attempt rapid rips but fail, poor quality discs stay slow and often finish without errors). This never ever happens when my external player is attached to a PC with its 18" factory cable. The database checks are 99% clean, and the errors match known flaws in the discs.
Supra markets their USB cables as being useful beyond the 2m limit. I haven’t been able to find much research on this topic, other than this post, where the person measured error rates on different lengths of USB cables. Only the Supra cable was error-free between 6 and 10 feet. All his cables had errors beyond 10 feet. That was an objective test, not taking into account sound quality.
Like @andris, I have heard differences between 2 of my USB cables. Similar to what @andris said, I’m guessing it has something to do with my preferred cable shielding the power wire, but I have no idea. For all I know, it could be distorting the signal, and I just happen to like the flavor that the distortion adds.
My hot take is, after just a little bit of playing around the Sabre with unison is much preferred than the previous akm stuff. And while I still find the modi multibit the better entry level option, the differences are in detail and timbre. I remember the soundstage and presentation being vastly different between akm and modi multibit. Those differences seem much smaller between Sabre and modi multibit. I fear I am not remembering the akm sound enough but iirc one time I switched between the 3 and multibit and there was so much more 3D I instantly sold the regular modi. The Sabre is not as shrill as I expected based on other reviews of other Sabre dacs, but it is definitely edgier.
I’ve been using a Monolith by Monoprice USB cable from my Mac to the BF 2, no issues… It seems to be of higher build quality than their standard cables.
