He is an A dealer who sells top line like Wilson Audio, Dynaudio, Gryphon,Hegel, Linn Sodek, Chord, McIntosh, Sim Audio, etc.
And, apparently many Roon users on this post are ostensibly enamored of the perennial ‘snake oil’ “conspiracy theory” that suggests cables don’t matter and “burn in” is “made up.” It is like trying to engage in a debate with a person who is an adamant anti-vaxer who denies science. That’s cool as it is a free country still. I don’t engage bc it is conspiracy stuff. It’s a no win discussion so I wish everyone well and so long …Long live Roon, with or without true hi fi, with or without premium cables! It’s all good!
You are right that, in some transfer modes, there is no retransmission of USB packets. Still, if the chances of getting errors are really small, obsessing over it does become crazy. It’s like obsessing over being hit by a meteorite.
Sometimes it’s a square wave, but other times it’s a sine wave. It depends on the protocol. But that doesn’t really matter as long as the bits are properly recognized by the receiver, so at the end of the day, it’s s still numbers. As I said before, digital signals have very generous tolerances, so they are very tolerant to noise. The chances of losing bits is again too low to obsess about.
And then, what if it does happen every once in a while? Would you even be able to tell? I seriously doubt. If you pretend otherwise, you should be able to demonstrate it objectively. If you can’t, I think it’s crazy to obsess about it.
Indeed it is, but the “anti-vaxer” is the believer in “burn-in”, not the converse. There’s not a shred of scientific (physics, metallurgy, electrical engineering) evidence to suggest that even the possibility of “burn-in” exists.
It’s a con, to which some have taken to extremes. €20,000!:
“Quantum Burning Technology”? Sounds very similar to Synergistic Research’s “Quantum Tunnelling Technology”, doesn’t it.
Throw in a really “sciency” term like quantum, which relatively few people understand and it must be amazing! Another marketing winner…
You are absolutely right, that is what I thougt too, but then we got this thick study book full of formulas about whatever happens beyond that in long wires. Reflection, all sprts of things. Can’t rememner, that was a long time ago.
Indeed it is, but it’s only of concern in relation to the manufacture and service life of VLSI components.
In VLSI, there is very high current density in very small connecting wires. That’s why CPUs and graphics processors run so hot, and self-destruct without active cooling.
Electromigration occurs at 10⁶ to 10⁷ Amperes per cm². To put that into context, you’d need to be passing 25,000 to 250,000 Amps through a 14 AWG (2.5 mm²) speaker wire! The sensible rating for such a cable is about 20 Amps. By 40 Amps, polyethylene insulation would start to melt. By 45 Amps, PVC insulation would start to melt.
14 AWG has a resistance of 0.00828 ohm/metre. I²R heating at 25,000 Amps would be (25,000)² x 0.00828 or 5.175 kW per metre.
Your speaker cables would be vapourised long before any electromigration could take place!
This is another example of where unscrupulous manufacturers take a phenomenon experienced only at the extreme fringes of engineering and claim it applies to audio.
On the face of it, the less informed would be inclined to believe it as it’s backed by science. Most wouldn’t go as far as examining the details to find that applying it to audio is nonsense. So they believe, then tell others and the mythical claims propagate.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
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I’m not sure what this is intended to imply. What’s an “A dealer”? Who hands out these grades? How does knowing how to import and sell expensive equipment make him knowledgeable about audio electronics? Osmosis?
@Marian Agreed! I just thought I’d stick my toe into this maelstrom and point out that audio over USB does have an important difference from every other use of USB we encounter in our lives. I’m a budget-phile myself. For me, cable quality just needs to be high enough so the connectors are reliable - a bit of an issue with the Micro-USB style I’m stuck with on my amp. Not the USB industry’s finest moment, IMHO.
If you scroll back you will see that I before mentioned the difference between SPDIF and TCP. I am aware that SPDIF has no packet resend mechanism.
All the following audiophile claims are also about TCP and how much the SQ is improved by audiophile network cables and routers and that it is not possible to get a clean digital audio signal without all the noise and jitter.
On that nonsenses my post was targeting.