Usb cable shootout

[bodiebill]

My best experience so far, usb cable wise, is two of these:

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005004368114560.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.27.3cc779d24MZZcR&gatewayAdapt=glo2nld

with these two boxes between them:

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005004787552713.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.15.3cc779d24MZZcR&gatewayAdapt=glo2nld

[Archimago]

8 hours ago, gfroman said:

Stealth USB-T Select currently in my system.
Adjusting the tunable collar, it sounds amazing and images like crazy.

 

 

I assume that's just a ferromagnetic core inside that "collar", right?

 

In what way did that make a difference? Where did you adjust this thing and what sonic characteristics did it affect? What equipment are you using that's sensitive to the adjustment?

 

One could just as well buy something like this and put it on your favorite USB cable at different locations to see if it makes a difference.

 

[gfroman]

No, it's not just a ferromagnetic core collar. From what I read, Stealth spent a long time trying different compositions to come up with the final tuning collar design.

The user slides the collar in small increments along the USB cable. At some position the music sounds more focused, with better imaging and soundstage. Took me a couple of weeks to get it to where it sounded best - all through listening to music and not by measuring equipment.

Sure, buy your own DIY products.

[dericchan1]

10 hours ago, gfroman said:

Stealth USB-T Select currently in my system.
Adjusting the tunable collar, it sounds amazing and images like crazy.

 

 

 

Sorry for my ignorance. What are those two beautiful crystal for? Is it just for decoration for the picture taken or it actually serves a function?

[gfroman]

Ha - Just a prop for the cable.

I'm an avid photographer and enjoy setting up different perspectives.

Thanks

[audiobomber]

12 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

I assume that's just a ferromagnetic core inside that "collar", right?

 

In what way did that make a difference? Where did you adjust this thing and what sonic characteristics did it affect? What equipment are you using that's sensitive to the adjustment?

 

One could just as well buy something like this and put it on your favorite USB cable at different locations to see if it makes a difference.

 

iFi Audio used a sliding ferrite core on their Mercury USB cable. Moving it was supposed to tune the sound.

 

The middle silencer is adjustable and can be moved along the whole length of the cable. This then “detunes” the antennae formed by the cable. The other two silencers should be kept as close to each respective end as possible.

https://ifi-audio.com/products/mercury/

[Blake]

I also use Stealth Select-T usb, and Varidig Sextet-T with the tuning collar (and Stealth ethernet, interconnects and power cords).  Great stuff.

 

 

 

[deneb]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:36 AM, Archimago said:

In what way did that make a difference?

There, you have it

A touch of good old audiophiles cognitive biases in full display

🙂

[Kimo]

2 hours ago, deneb said:

There, you have it

A touch of good old audiophiles cognitive biases in full display

🙂

 

Whenever we came across an AM tower detuning in my previous life, little was discussed.  The proprietors resembled electrical alchemists.  It was expensive to do though, mostly because of the engineering involved.

 

Basically, the offending RF was modified in the magic box, thereby leading to electrical invisibility.  We presume the sources could change, in this case, so the slider make sense.

[audiobomber]

2 hours ago, Kimo said:

Basically, the offending RF was modified in the magic box, thereby leading to electrical invisibility.  We presume the sources could change, in this case, so the slider make sense.

There's no doubt that ferrite cores work, and that they can be tuned, via magnetic properties and placement. It makes sense that moving a ferrite core along the cable would change the frequency of affected wavelengths, impacting the RFI that the downstream machine sees. That's why manufacturers add them to USB cables.

 

I only put ferrites on AC and DC cables, not on analog or digital data cables, because without proper engineering it is a crap shoot; could benefit, could do harm. An AC or DC cable for audio should never have anything higher than 60Hz riding on it, and ferrites operate at far higher frequencies, so a core can't hurt and may help.

 

Of course you could add a movable silencer, as Stealth and iFi have done, and listen for results, but it seems a bit too random for me to bother. EMI/RFI is not constant, it changes depending on which devices are radiating and their locations. I notice that in the latest cables, iFi has dropped the movable silencer.

[gfroman]

My USB cable ownership went from Wireworld Platinum > Final Touch Sinope > Stealth USB-T Select.

All I know is that system has never sounded better since the switch to Stealth.

Imaging is downright spooky!

[Kimo]

I guess I could justify the price by telling my wife she just needs the to slide the ring up and down and not swap cables anymore when I am dialing in the system...

 

Then again, 1 meter is long enough to use for garroting.   Discretion must be considered.

[One and a half]

5 hours ago, audiobomber said:

There's no doubt that ferrite cores work, and that they can be tuned, via magnetic properties and placement. It makes sense that moving a ferrite core along the cable would change the frequency of affected wavelengths, impacting the RFI that the downstream machine sees. That's why manufacturers add them to USB cables.

 

I only put ferrites on AC and DC cables, not on analog or digital data cables, because without proper engineering it is a crap shoot; could benefit, could do harm. An AC or DC cable for audio should never have anything higher than 60Hz riding on it, and ferrites operate at far higher frequencies, so a core can't hurt and may help.

 

Of course you could add a movable silencer, as Stealth and iFi have done, and listen for results, but it seems a bit too random for me to bother. EMI/RFI is not constant, it changes depending on which devices are radiating and their locations. I notice that in the latest cables, iFi has dropped the movable silencer.

To make things easier,  conducted noise ends at 30 MHz (in wires EMC) , above that frequency,  noise is radiated through air (RFI).

The hard part is to determine what the conducted noise frequency is, and then where does it come from.  

 

Image problems are usually attributed to noise from a USB source, also brightness from the source. Even 'high' quality USB eg from my Lumin U1 can change with different USB cables and USB fixer-uppers.

[Archimago]

On 8/22/2023 at 8:26 PM, gfroman said:

No, it's not just a ferromagnetic core collar. From what I read, Stealth spent a long time trying different compositions to come up with the final tuning collar design.

The user slides the collar in small increments along the USB cable. At some position the music sounds more focused, with better imaging and soundstage. Took me a couple of weeks to get it to where it sounded best - all through listening to music and not by measuring equipment.

Sure, buy your own DIY products.

So I'm wondering.

 

If you label the optimal location so you can put the collar back there when done experimenting, then have your friend or wife or kid move it without you seeing it, would you be able to consistently tell that it has been moved say by a foot or so and lost focus vs. placed back to the optimal position?

 

[Would be fascinating if this is possible. Since USB is a packet-based technology, would be amazing to explore how changes in RF noise would affect audible "focus" which presumably would be a combination of output levels (eg. R-L balance) and temporal characteristics.]

[STC]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

then have your friend or wife or kid move it without you seeing it

In this “relegion” ( not to be confused with religion ) certain rituals are forbidden. 😉

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

which presumably would be a combination of output levels (eg. R-L balance) and temporal characteristics

 

Is there any data at all indicating ferrite rings affect phase in any way?

[Archimago]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

Is there any data at all indicating ferrite rings affect phase in any way?

Nope. 

 

And I don't think there's any plausible hypothesis for how to create a phase shift within the data in those packets either! :-)

[Archimago]

4 hours ago, STC said:

In this “relegion” ( not to be confused with religion ) certain rituals are forbidden. 😉

 

Something interesting happening this weekend:

Monster hunters descend on Scotland for biggest Loch Ness search in 50 years

 

Apparently there have been >1100 "sightings" for the creature. So people are clearly "seeing something", right?

 

I appreciate that the monster hunters are giving this a good try at least (even if just in good fun)! Not sure I've seen this same level of desire/devotion to find answers among certain audiophiles.

 

[deneb]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

Is there any data at all indicating ferrite rings affect phase in any way?

Sure, the phase of the audiophile believer's mind 

[STC]

30 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

I appreciate that the monster hunters are giving this a good try at least (even if just in good fun)!

I hope they have better luck than https://www.iflscience.com/flat-earthers-attempt-to-get-to-the-edge-of-the-world-ends-in-massive-disappointment-58200

[Kimo]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Is there any data at all indicating ferrite rings affect phase in any way?

 

From a previous post.  

 

 

"Image problems are usually attributed to noise from a USB source, also brightness from the source." 

 

Ferrites alter noise.  Rob Watts says noise = brightness.  Therefore, noise = image problems.  Image problems are the result of phasing problems.  Therefore, a ferrite ring affects phase.

 

Further in kind explanations will be billed hourly, since I am working on a number of defense teams at the moment.

 

 

[Currawong]

4 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Something interesting happening this weekend:

Monster hunters descend on Scotland for biggest Loch Ness search in 50 years

 

Apparently there have been >1100 "sightings" for the creature. So people are clearly "seeing something", right?

 

I appreciate that the monster hunters are giving this a good try at least (even if just in good fun)! Not sure I've seen this same level of desire/devotion to find answers among certain audiophiles.

 

I get the scepticism. I was playing with network isolation and DACs recently, which to my understanding, should make NO difference, given how ethernet works. But it did. I am not happy!  Though, it was YMMV, depending which DAC I tried it with. For the TT2, the difference was extremely minimal -- below the point that I'd consider myself reliable. This even after I'd done my best to eliminate noise from my system, which has otherwise negated any effect different USB cables have.  

 

I really want to get a suitable 'scope and compare my impressions with the amount, and type, of noise different products pass through -- also how resilient different digital products are to that noise. 

[One and a half]

On 8/25/2023 at 5:48 AM, One and a half said:

 mage problems are usually attributed to noise from a USB source, also brightness from the source. Even 'high' quality USB eg from my Lumin U1 can change with different USB cables and USB fixer-uppers.

 

There's a  a correction here with this statement. When the audio system was in the other part of the house, a Topz transformer was used on the front end of all AC supplies. With the audio equipment in another room, an Equitech 1RQ replaced the Topaz transformer. The imaging wasn't quite right, though the speaker toe in wasn't right, so measured the angles and distances, they were OK, but the image suffered suckout from centre to either left and right speaker.

 

The Intona 7504, ifi Micro usB3, Nordost blue heaven cables, and the 9V linear supply, were all removed, a single Acoustic Revive split USB cable then connected the Lumin U1 to the DAC.  Everything else remained the same.

Dang, the image was restored, and gained a little height too on very ordinary recordings, very happy with the results.

 

Conclusion, the type of USB cable depends on the AC quality.

[Kimo]

I have been listening to my last 2 new usb cables and they both shoe some character.  The Furutech GT2 pro seems to have a little extra mid bass and a little extra upper midrange.  Reminds me of some other Japanese made analog cables.  The AQ Coffee sounds pretty neutral and laid back, until I turn on the DBS system.  Then everything gets bigger, wider, brighter, and jumbled.  

 

I guess some may find this sound more enjoyable, but by comparison with the other cables, both cheap less cheap it sounds sloppy and brighter.  Better and closer to the others without the DBS.

 

Coffee is probably going back into the box and up for sale.  Furutech will compete for the coveted position of feeding the Linnenberg Sonny Rollins, The Clash, Bill Evans, and Opeth.

 

 

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Kimo said:

I have been listening to my last 2 new usb cables and they both shoe some character.  The Furutech GT2 pro seems to have a little extra mid bass and a little extra upper midrange.  Reminds me of some other Japanese made analog cables.  The AQ Coffee sounds pretty neutral and laid back, until I turn on the DBS system.  Then everything gets bigger, wider, brighter, and jumbled.  

 

I guess some may find this sound more enjoyable, but by comparison with the other cables, both cheap less cheap it sounds sloppy and brighter.  Better and closer to the others without the DBS.

 

Coffee is probably going back into the box and up for sale.  Furutech will compete for the coveted position of feeding the Linnenberg Sonny Rollins, The Clash, Bill Evans, and Opeth.

 

 

 

I've listened to the Furutech and several of the AQ cables. My own personal preference is either the UpTone connector (not a cable) or the JSSG360 cable from Ghent Audio. These are very inexpensive.