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POLL: What USB cable are you using?


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Using a BMC PureUSB1 5-meter with active error correction; an active electronic circuit restores and reshapes the digital USB signal and does noise filtering immediately before the target device. Someone else on the forum has referred to the approach as snake oil; all I know is that after comparing alot of USB cables, many of which cost alot more from some of the 'big names', this is the best I've heard at long runs at a reasonable price.

Legacy Audio CaliberXD custom, dual Legacy Foundation Subs with Legacy Wavelet, Esoteric P-02, D-02, C-02, and A-02, Cybershaft Custom Premium Limited OP21 10 mHz Clock, SHUNYATA TRITON v3 & TYPHON QR, Environmental Potentials EP-2050 & EP2750, CH Copper Busbar Main & GE Sub-panel, 20-amp dedicated circuits, Dual 10’ Ground Rods, CADWELD bonding, Avatar Acoustics AfterBurner8 duplexes (5), Elrod MASTER SERIES Statement Gold Powercords (4), Elrod Statement Gold Powercords (2), Elrod Statement Silver Powercords (1), Elrod Statement Gold XLR (2 pair), Shunyata SIGMA AES/EBU 110ohm (2), Shunyata SIGMA CLOCK-50 (3), Shunyata SIGMA XLR, Shunyata Anaconda Zitron XLR, B.M.C. PureUSB1, Elrod Statement Gold custom speaker cables, Elrod MASTERS SERIES SG JUMPERS (4), Adona AV45CS4, AV45, Composite Audio CF-2010, HRS DPX Damping Plates (11), Stillpoints UltraSS w/Ultra Bases

 

Computer Audio/Rip Playback: Apple MacBook Pro 15” 2019, 6-core i9, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD (Music Library, Playback S/W & O/S here), Audirvana+ v3, iTunes, etc….

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Abandoned for Ethernet.

- Mark

 

Synology DS916+ > SoTM dCBL-CAT7 > Netgear switch > SoTM dCBL-CAT7 > dCS Vivaldi Upsampler (Nordost Valhalla 2 power cord) > Nordost Valhalla 2 Dual 110 Ohm AES/EBU > dCS Vivaldi DAC (David Elrod Statement Gold power cord) > Nordost Valhalla 2 xlr > Absolare Passion preamp (Nordost Valhalla 2 power cord) > Nordost Valhalla 2 xlr > VTL MB-450 III (Shunyata King Cobra CX power cords) > Nordost Valhalla 2 speaker > Kaiser Kaewero Classic /JL Audio F110 (Wireworld Platinum power cord).

 

Power Conditioning: Entreq Olympus Tellus grounding (AC, preamp and dac) / Shunyata Hydra Triton + Typhoon (Shunyata Anaconda ZiTron umbilical/Shunyata King Cobra CX power cord) > Furutec GTX D-Rhodium AC outlet.

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That latest instance, Ken was in Hong Kong, where the QudioQuest distributor isn't their Marantz importer. Photos I find for news of him indicates he travels with a Diamond USB for his MacBook Pro regardless of what cable brands local host distributes.

Chanced upon photo from this weekend's Hong Kong High-End Audio-Visual Show :

nEO_IMG_L1010051.jpg

AudioQuest Diamond is the USB cable Ken trusts and travels with for his MacBook Pro' date=' regardless of what cable brand a country's [b']Marantz[/b] distributor imports ?

 

nEO_IMG_L10100701.jpg

 

And also, you know of Karl-Heinz Fink ? I had shared how he said (including of his Diamond) :

What my friend' date=' Karl-Heinz Fink, a respected speakers consultant, just publicly shared :

« Difficult: After some weeks for playing with my Computer Audio in our listening room, I finally got a version I like a lot. So my final system (for now) is a MacMini, 2009 with the old outside power supply, El Capitan, 8GB memory and a 64 GB SSD for the OS. Playback software is Audirvana with remote control via IPAD. The hardrive is a 6TB Firewire 800.....makes the USB port free for the Audio streaming. The MacMini runs on a linear power supply we made in house...HUGE difference compared to the SMPS that came with the Mac. Even the hard drive runs on a linear power supply (Conrad, 12V 2A around 55€) I'm 100% sure, SMPS are evil and responsible for a lot of problems in a Computer Audio setup. The computer connects via the QED top USB cable to a Wired4Sound USB signal conditioner. The conditioner runs on a linear power supply (BOTW). The QED has a Ferrite sleeve and was the best choice on the computer side. Next device is a MUTEC De-Clocker - the best invention since sliced bread for Computer Audio. It also converts DSD to PCM (sounds better than using no MUTEC into my DAC with DSD support). The cable in between is a Audioquest Diamond (hard to beat !) and the 5V power is decoupled with a BOTW adapter, as MUTEC uses the 5V for the input block. SPDIF with a Walter Fuchs special digital cable connects to a AURELIC Vega DAC. Sounds complicated? Yes, it was complicated. More complicated than analog :( »

13659113_1077475252306828_7925687247177168140_n.jpg?oh=b90aea327d10dba8e6fbc799ecc777bf&oe=57EC4469&__gda__=1476219618_92774c86790d5a49ef57866e267a3685

 

And details of his recent design, FinkTeam WM-3 Loudspeakers

 

It's just a lead, for those readers who wants to audition... Affordability, here—concerning this Thread, is a secondary issue ?

 

«

an accurate picture

Sono pessimista con l'intelligenza,

 

ma ottimista per la volontà.

severe loudspeaker alignment »

 

 

 

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Thanks Teresa, typo now corrected.

 

Your welcome.

 

BTW, I also find your advice to others to ignore science and trust their ears only, disturbing and IMO very misguided.

 

Measurements ensure that products meet minimum specifications and are manufactured correctly, however IMHO they offer no clue to how something will sound in my system, with my music and my ear/brain/body system. To learn that I actually have to listen to a wide variety music I like over several weeks.

 

Our physical senses are the easiest of things to trick and are very misleading.

 

Sometimes short term can trick our senses, but not long term. Long term listening with a wide variety of music one likes will reveal the true sound quality of anything IMHO.

I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums.  I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past.

 

I still love music.

 

Teresa

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Measurements ensure that products meet minimum specifications and are manufactured correctly, however IMHO they offer no clue to how something will sound in my system, with my music and my ear/brain/body system. To learn that I actually have to listen to a wide variety music I like over several weeks.es short term can trick our senses, but not long term....Long term listening with a wide variety of music one likes will reveal the true sound quality of anything IMHO.

 

+1

 

Teresa, I agree completely that there is no substitute for listening. It is no co-incidence that, while measurements play an important role in the design process, virtually every equipment designer worth his salt fine tunes his final product through listening.

"Relax, it's only hi-fi. There's never been a hi-fi emergency." - Roy Hall

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron

 

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  • 1 month later...

Wireworld Starlight 7. A year ago I borrowed three cables from the Cable Company -- the Wireworld, a Shunyata Venom, and an Analysis Plus Purple. My desktop system consists of a Wadia PowerDAC mini, Schiit Wyrd, and Kimber 4TC speaker cables to Audioengine P4 speakers.

To my ears, the Wireworld cable projected a much larger soundstage and had greater dynamics compared to the other two and compared to the Kimber Cu Bus that I had there in the first place. For the modest cost ($100/m), the Wireworld made a nice improvement. The speakers now seem to be the weak link.

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I tryed Synergistic Research's USB Active SE, transparent premieum usb,Acoustic Revive's USB-SPS and more ,i think Total dac usb was the best in my system.

Ascend Acoustics sierra 2//Modwright KWI 200//Luxman DA-06

Total dac usb//Transparent usb//Stealth pgs08//Kubala sosna Fascination//Kimber pk10 gold//audience powerchord se//Siltech Ruby hill ii//Vibex one7

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Wireworld Starlight 7. A year ago I borrowed three cables from the Cable Company -- the Wireworld, a Shunyata Venom, and an Analysis Plus Purple. My desktop system consists of a Wadia PowerDAC mini, Schiit Wyrd, and Kimber 4TC speaker cables to Audioengine P4 speakers.

To my ears, the Wireworld cable projected a much larger soundstage and had greater dynamics compared to the other two and compared to the Kimber Cu Bus that I had there in the first place. For the modest cost ($100/m), the Wireworld made a nice improvement. The speakers now seem to be the weak link.

 

+1 for Wireworld Starlight 7.

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  • 5 months later...
Thanks Teresa, typo now corrected.

Our physical senses are the easiest of things to trick and are very misleading.

 

I hear this all the time, and would like to know if you don;t wear a coat whjen it "feels" cold out, try to touch things that "feel hot" assume the floor might not support you even though it feels solid, or a bazillion other things you routinely trust your sense for. We could not survive without trusting our senses, and we DO survive because they work quite well. Yes, sticks look bent in water. Move on!

"Verbal contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on." Famous Hollywood Mogul

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I hear this all the time, and would like to know if you don;t wear a coat whjen it "feels" cold out, try to touch things that "feel hot" assume the floor might not support you even though it feels solid, or a bazillion other things you routinely trust your sense for. We could not survive without trusting our senses, and we DO survive because they work quite well. Yes, sticks look bent in water. Move on!

 

Our senses fool us all the time. Or rather, our ability to recall is very flawed. It's well known that witnesses to crimes can be very unreliable reporting what they saw, or thought they saw. Different people witnessing the same event report different "facts." Memoirists regularly write flawed memoirs based on what they think they remember. In terms of immediate reactions, yes, our fingers tell us something is hot or cold. But when processing complex information into memory, things are different.

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Our senses fool us all the time. Or rather, our ability to recall is very flawed. It's well known that witnesses to crimes can be very unreliable reporting what they saw, or thought they saw. Different people witnessing the same event report different "facts." Memoirists regularly write flawed memoirs based on what they think they remember. In terms of immediate reactions, yes, our fingers tell us something is hot or cold. But when processing complex information into memory, things are different.

 

True, but there is a hidden assumption here, which commits the logical fllacy called ' the law of the excluded middle'. In other words, the false dilemma is that perceptions or memories are either perfect or useless. Pointing out that they can be flawed is not an automatic indictment of all empirical claims. When it comes to audio, many pundits commit this very fallacy, whene=ver they simply claim that it doesn;t matter if you (think) you heard a difference because 'sticks look bent in water'.

 

It is not all or nothing.

"Verbal contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on." Famous Hollywood Mogul

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True, but there is a hidden assumption here, which commits the logical fllacy called ' the law of the excluded middle'. In other words, the false dilemma is that perceptions or memories are either perfect or useless. Pointing out that they can be flawed is not an automatic indictment of all empirical claims. When it comes to audio, many pundits commit this very fallacy, whene=ver they simply claim that it doesn;t matter if you (think) you heard a difference because 'sticks look bent in water'.

It is not all or nothing.

 

Touch dry ice and you'll swear it's hot.

Watch David Copperfield make the elephant disappear and you'll swear it's gone.

Trust the Science first, the dry ice measures cold and we know it's physically impossible for the elephant to disappear.

In all cases your have to combine bias controlled blind testing with measurement before any sighted impressions can be given any validity.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

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