So, surprised myself a little. I dropped nearly $70 on a USB cable to see if it made a difference between my Rpi and my PS Audio Sprout 100.
I’d been firmly in the camp of not thinking it would make any difference. However, I’ve got an Allo USBridge on the way and thought I might upgrade to fulfill it’s potential. I’m still waiting for the USBridge, but the cable came today. Had a little listen to some tracks I know well and then switched over and listened to them again.
Got to say, in my system, to my ears, it really has opened up the sound a lot, sounds has gained depth and height, bass has really got extra punch, but still taut and I’m hearing a sweetness to some piano notes that I hadn’t heard before.
The rest of the night will probably involve whisky and listening to some old favorites!
I’m pleased that you seem happy with your purchase, but unless you are doing blind testing then it may just be your brain confirming your bias; I also bought a better quality USB cable to rule out it being the weak link between PC and a Chord external DAC, but with a friend changing the cable over while blindfolded, I really couldn’t tell a difference and was only guessing which was the ‘superior’ expensive cable.
Your ears could also just be better than mine, but then unconscious bias also often does a good job of reaffirming our expectations!
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy into that. If it sounds better by enough of a margin, you can tell, otherwise, why bother with hifi? Buy yourself a Bose and tell yourself it sounds best.
I was a sceptic, expecting minor differences at best, my bias would actually have worked the other way if it was there. I previously bought a blue jeans USB cable and couldn’t tell the difference between that and my cheap cable, if anything, I preferred the cheaper one.
I agree that if it sounds better by enough of a margin you CAN tell, but given USB carries a digital signal of ones and noughts, then the difference would be in glitches caused by missing ones and zeros, not by tightening up the music or giving bass extra punch.
You’re comparing apples and oranges with hifi systems vs USB cables; you definitely CAN tell a difference between a poor quality system that does a rubbish job of converting those ones and noughts and transmitting it as an analogue sound wave that represents the original recorded signal as accurately as possible. But unless you have a very poor USB cable, both systems will be receiving exactly the same digital signal.
Now don’t get me wrong, I still use my Audioquest USB cable, because it provides a high quality connection and the chance of errors from external noise is probably lower than an el cheapo cable, but I’ve proven with tests that I can’t tell any difference whatsoever in audio quality. I’m yet to see evidence anywhere on the internet of someone that could consistently tell the difference between different cables that meet the USB standard in BLIND tests.
Given the sturdiness of my Audioquest USB cable I’m pretty content it will last a lot longer than a cheap Amazon basics cable though.
I’m also in the 0s and 1s camp. I still use AudioQuest, the cheapest they make is sufficient, because one can be reasonably sure they are up to spec, unlike a lot of cables on Amazon or elsewhere.
