POLL: What USB cable are you using?

[firedog]

The good:

 

- The "background" for the music is much more silent that it is with the Cinnamon cable. Eerily so, as I thought the Cinnamon cable was darn silent,but in comparision sounds like a noisy city streetscape. It is like a bit of greyish haze has been removed. I like this effect very much indeed.

 

- The cable is fairly well built.

 

The bad:

 

- I am not sure, but I think the soundstage has receded and lost some depth. Voices still float in the room, but they all seem to be even with or slightly behind the speakers now. There is little or no presence in front of the speaker plane. This might change as the cable gets broken in a bit, or it might be reflecting more of what the DAC is giving it. (Or it might be a more accurate presentation, I don't know, but I don't think I like it.

 

- The cable arrived in what can only be described as piss poor packaging. Not sealed, not wrapped in plastic, just popped in a cardboard box and coiled with a couple twister ties. For $100, I expected the cable to at least be fastened to the packaging.

----

 

I plan to listen to it over the weekend, and if I am still ambivalent, return it and just buy another Audioquest cable. The wonderful blackness of the audio is offset by the changes in the soundstage.

 

-Paul

 

Paul, I read somewhere the Pangea people said they downgraded the packaging instead of increasing prices. I guess you can't complain too much about that.

[firedog]

timing variations in the clocks whereby the accuracy error that affects each clock edge and cycle is digital clock jitter. Sampling jitter, transmitter jitter, line induced jitter and interfering-noise induced jitter are a few more. To date, I've never heard bad jitter and why should we if we are using equipment that has been engineered to reduce jitter. So Chris, how about providing some test measurements or samples of bad jitter so we can hear it.

 

mav52- my guess is you've never heard jitter b/c you don't know what to listen for and so don't notice its effects. That is part of what Chris was trying to get at in his response. I'm pretty sure if you look online you can find some files available with added jitter. Listen on a good system and you can hear the difference. You hear it mostly in the very low and high end frequencies, and in the spatial placement, room ambience, and instrument localization. Lowering jitter makes the sound tighten up and become clearer, and lower jitter reproduction provides you with better spatial clues in the music. It can be heard, once you know what to listen for.

 

Even much well engineered equipment results in enough jitter being created at the end of the chain that you can hear the effects. Especially if the jitter is not random, but mostly at certain frequencies, the effect is quite audible.

[Julf]

If others want to go "round and round" wasting their time and money on something another(you) believes is bullocks. Then let them and leave your snarky comments to yourself. We are not talking about food, shelter and kids here, but expendable income used for an expensive hobby. In the scope of things, $100 for a cable is pittance as compared to the other expenditures.

 

Fair enough - my position on cables is probably belongs in a blog or FAQ, and as prufrock has started a separate thread about that, I will try to focus my comments on this specific issue to that thread and effort for now.

[4est]

mav52- my guess is you've never heard jitter b/c you don't know what to listen for and so don't notice its effects. That is part of what Chris was trying to get at in his response. I'm pretty sure if you look online you can find some files available with added jitter. Listen on a good system and you can hear the difference. You hear it mostly in the very low and high end frequencies, and in the spatial placement, room ambience, and instrument localization. Lowering jitter makes the sound tighten up and become clearer, and lower jitter reproduction provides you with better spatial clues in the music. It can be heard, once you know what to listen for.

 

Even much well engineered equipment results in enough jitter being created at the end of the chain that you can hear the effects. Especially if the jitter is not random, but mostly at certain frequencies, the effect is quite audible.

 

An easy to hear good example. IMO, would be "seeing" the roundness of a cymbal or definitiveness of a kick drum.

[4est]

Fair enough - my position on cables is probably belongs in a blog or FAQ, and as prufrock has started a separate thread about that, I will try to focus my comments on this specific issue to that thread and effort for now.

 

Please know that I am not desiring to quiet your voice as much as temper your attitude as conveyed in print. Maybe as a non native English speaker you do not realize how patronizing you come off as at times. For instance, we yanks can be sensitive to that with our "rugged individualism" approach towards things.

 

Cheers!

[mav52]

An easy to hear good example. IMO, would be "seeing" the roundness of a cymbal or definitiveness of a kick drum.

 

Thanks, cymbals let me check a few out

[Julf]

Please know that I am not desiring to quiet your voice as much as temper your attitude as conveyed in print. Maybe as a non native English speaker you do not realize how patronizing you come off as at times. For instance, we yanks can be sensitive to that with our "rugged individualism" approach towards things.

 

Absolutely, and appreciated. A lot of the issue is definitely cultural. But does that mean that I have to adapt to a US-centric communication style? Or preserve the authenticity of my native style? I know what my (American) wife would say: "There's 300 million of us, and we are heavily armed!".

 

Cheers,

 

(and as I say that, I am off to celebrate one of my native pagan rituals, Midsummer's Night).

[Paul R]

A DVD, good god man I thought we were talking computer audio, how about an example of a DAC that you can actually hear the 'jitter'. It's either a poorly engineering DAC or poor recording. I still say, if you can't hear it why care, it's a non issue. Save you money.

 

Actually, I said a CD, and you told us you have never heard jitter before. I gave you a way to learn what it sounds like.

 

This is one of those really fun areas, because you cannot tell, just by listening, if what you are hearing is caused by jitter or something else unless you have a good analyzer and can put the device on a test rig.

 

But in the case of the device I referenced, we already did just that. And it puts out an astonishing amount of jitter - hundreds of times what a good modern PC does. So much even really decent S/PDIF DACs have trouble locking onto it.

 

Pretty much connect that player up to any S/PDIF DAC and you can hear the effects of jitter. That is why I specified the digital out port you know.

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

Ah, I guess it was one of the evenings when Dr. Raulerson stayed home, while Mr. Paul Hyde got out to play.

 

Nope- just tired of every converstation being oversalted with what sounds like nasty cracks from you.

 

If you don't appreciate the subject, go find another subject to discuss. At least you must have googled me to find the "Dr." in front of my name.

 

In any case, yes, part of it is cultural. And yes, unfortunately, if the majority of people you are talking to come from a relatively uniform culture, then - "when in Rome" is the rule of the day.

 

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

Paul, I read somewhere the Pangea people said they downgraded the packaging instead of increasing prices. I guess you can't complain too much about that.

 

That is admirable. I am not sure if I let the packaging influence me too much or not, but I definitely didn't feel like I had gotten a good deal on the cable, and did return it.

 

Thinking about it, that is probably the case, at least in part. But honestly? It doesn't cost that much to put a cable in a moisture proof bag, or at least use a couple tie-wraps to secure it for shipping.

 

Something or another is not right with that company.

 

-Paul

[orgel]

And yes, unfortunately, if the majority of people you are talking to come from a relatively uniform culture, then - "when in Rome" is the rule of the day.

 

The US has a relatively uniform culture? That's news to me. Or is it audiophiles you were referring to?

 

--David

[esldude]

Some modern players are bad at jitter and they shouldn't be. Not sure where it becomes audible for certain. But any modern machine should be able to get it to 500 picoseconds or less. Even cheap players.

 

I detailed a few year old Pioneer DVD/SACD/DVD-A universal player I have in the past. It has huge amounts of jitter you can detect with a J-test on my other equipment. It however does this whenever it starts a new track and dies down to a level not quite detectable by 18 seconds into the track. Stays low after that. Quite odd behaviour I haven't seen in other disc spinners. Some BluRay players I have had hands on had jitter somewhat measurable by me others didn't. I also have an old MAudio Audiophile 24/96 PCI sound card. That has lots of jitter at levels I can measure. You can lock the clock to an external source however and it goes away.

[Paul R]

The US has a relatively uniform culture? That's news to me. Or is it audiophiles you were referring to?

 

--David

 

Hi David -

OT- but yes. U.S. Culture is relatively uniform. Note the "relatively" in there.

 

You can pretty much go anywhere in the U.S. speak English, find familiar food prepared in a familiar way, discuss the same popular entertainment with the locals, meet people that have done the same kinds of things you have done, have similar family structures, etc.

 

The great melting pot is still working, it just takes a couple or three generations to subsume outlier populations. Usually, there are exceptions of course, but they are generally pretty geographically local.

 

-Paul

[orgel]

OT- but yes. U.S. Culture is relatively uniform. Note the "relatively" in there.

 

You can pretty much go anywhere in the U.S. speak English, find familiar food prepared in a familiar way, discuss the same popular entertainment with the locals, meet people that have done the same kinds of things you have done, have similar family structures, etc.

 

I guess my experience is different -- it seems much less culturally uniform here in the US than in most other countries I've been in, and it also seems that if, as a country, we ever had shared values, then there's less sharing going on these days. In my mind there's a difference between "our country is relatively culturally uniform" and "in the circles in which I move, we're relatively culturally uniform."

 

Anyway, not so OT: My point was that what you're assuming is a cultural norm might not actually be so for the community. It might just be normative for a subgroup.

 

(I had written some more pointed stuff but decided it wouldn't pour any oil on troubled waters, which is what I'd like to do. I would urge, though, that we reflect on the words of the late, great Rodney King.)

 

--David

[Paul R]

Well, everything I tried to write in response sounded awful and not at all what I wanted to say once I read it. Suffice to say, there is plenty of room in the country for everyone to be as different as they want to be, and yet still have plenty in common.

 

Same as in the audiophile world in fact.

 

-Paul

[Julf]

Paul,

 

Nope- just tired of every converstation being oversalted with what sounds like nasty cracks from you.

 

In the vein of "can't we all just get along?", I suggest you just please ignore anything I post if it annoys/offends/tires you.

 

At least you must have googled me to find the "Dr." in front of my name.

 

Getting very OT, but just wanted to clarify the "Dr." was purely in the allusion to "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", not a result of any googling.

[mav52]

Paul since I don't have any use for a crappy CD player or do I need to go buy one, how about ( anyone) provide me a bit of music that my current system can play and allow me to hear some jitter. All I know is that my current CD player, according Stereophile (John Atkinson) measurements shows measured jitter level was a low 293 picoseconds peak–peak and the high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal (11.025kHz at –6dBFS sampled at 44.1kHz with LSB toggled at 229Hz, 16-bit CD data). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz. And I was listening for kick drums and cymbals yesterday evening in some Dire Straits, Steely Dan, and i even put on Gustav Holst - Planets music I couldn't anything out of the ordinary.

 

Thanks

[Paul R]

Paul,

 

 

 

In the vein of "can't we all just get along?", I suggest you just please ignore anything I post if it annoys/offends/tires you.

 

I have a better idea- why don't you lay off the nasty cracks? Your opinion and humor I value, the attitude and nasty cracks I do not. I suspect many other people have similar opinions.

 

We are only talking about manners here, not disagreeing opinions.

[sjoc2000]

I'm with mav52, can someone provide a file with discernible jitter? I've been working on the jitter problem, it would be nice to hear it (maybe I have been and don't know it). I'd also like to thank Julf here for his help on understanding Dac reduction of jitter.

 

Paul can't be a Dr., he's way to busy tending his audiophilia, all his patients would be dead. :0)

 

Jim

[Paul R]

You want to hear a gross example of jitter, yet you claim your equipment is incapable of producing jitter you can hear. I give you a good cheap way to hear jitter in the extreme and you are not satisfied... (grin)

 

I don't know of consumer or free packages that allow you to inject jitter into a digital music file. I expect that Dennis or Owen might (esldude or goldsdad).

 

Textronix has it's SerialExpress package, but that is hardly free. Maybe MatLAB has the capability to create audio files with measured injected jitter in them.

 

Point is, if you don't know what kinds of effects jitter has, you are never going to hear it in your system. If it is indeed, having any audible effect at all in your system.

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

Paul can't be a Dr., he's way to busy tending his audiophilia, all his patients would be dead. :0)

 

Jim

 

(Snort! LOL!)

[Julf]

Dear Paul,. how are you doing?

 

I have a better idea- why don't you lay off the nasty cracks? Your opinion and humor I value, the attitude and nasty cracks I do not.

 

You are sooo right! My apologies. My fault. Hadn't realized my style of communication came across as a bad kind of popular drug. Thank you so much for putting me right!

 

I appreciate your wisdom and patience in guiding us poor, unsophisticated yorooopeans in the right direction.

 

Have a really good day,

[Liam]

iFi Gemini .70m

[Harpy]

Elijah Audio Isolate Cu - Has no 5v power leads.

[whoozwah]

I'm using the cable/adapter that came with my uptone regen. If I didn't have a regen I'd probably be using a belkin cable or something that was built to spec and priced accordingly.