USB cables, please share your experience

Cheers for the comment, it shouldn't be too hard to locate the usb cable you are talking about...China is a small country after all  I get the gist, maybe I should start off with a chinese audiophile type cable.

Source please? I've seen the HDMI arguments but I haven't come across the equivalent for USB yet.

 

:rofl:  what do you mean source?  If the cable didn't pass through the correct information it wouldn't work.  End of.  We're not talking about analogue tv and grainy pictures here.  You can buy a USB cable tester if you want.  You can buy testers to see if the USB ports are working properly etc etc...  How about you provide a source that scientifically proves that USB cables are different?

I think people forget 2 sides of USB. USB carries power as well as data. If all usb cables are built equal then why do charging times differ between usb cables when using the same charger? Why does a usb powered dac fail to turn on when using some cables while running perfectly on others? Agreed that it will either provide data or not but you are also forgetting that data transfer times vary between usb cables (fact btw), in audio it is not ideal to have data reach late as it leads to timing inconsistencies. Like I said before, I really don't want to start a debate on this matter....most of us have been on the forum long enough to know the arguments for/against. Lets just say whether you have tried an audiophile usb cable and whether it has worked for you

Thanks

So 'scientifically and accurately' = 'just because', huh?

As in 'If the Earth wasn't flat, we'd all fall off. End of.', perhaps?

 

  :rofl:  God there's some daft people here.

 

Take a usb cable and say an external hard drive.  Create an MD5 hash on the computer for a selected file.  copy the file to the desired device.  Create MD5 hash on desired device of the copied file.  Compare.  They will be the same.  Change cable, and repeat.  That's the source and evidence that the cables are passing through the same information.  Jeeees, people get so defensive when you break their beliefs with a simple bit of evidence don't they?

 

Yes, there are different levels of USB (1, 2 and 3), but the data will still be the same.  Please can you define the difference between an "audiophile" usb cable and one that isn't "audiophile"?

I'm sorry I wasn't talking about USB 1,2 or 3 but talking about how transfer rate differs from cables....like I said the data will be the same but the transfer rate will not be. An audiophile usb cable will be one designed to carry an audio signal to a dac.  

Chill your EDITED boots man, I'm not arguing with you, as I said I've read a number of the technical explanations for how HDMI works and they're very interesting, so I'd like to have a look at the equivalent articles for how USB works, out of technical interest, nothing more than that. I have no opinion on whether audio USB cables differ because I don't use them, so I'm taking no side in this debate. I'm looking for information, that's it, your comment implies that you've already read the sort of articles I'm looking for, so I was hoping you could give me a shortcut to them (it's too early to be googling...). I even said "please" ffs...

BTW, just using the word "scientifically" doesn't mean your argument is scientifically sound...

 

Apologies, it's sometimes hard to read people's intentions on messageboards. Shouldn't have splurted like that.

 

Either way, see my other blurted post on how to test USB cables yourself.  You can get a port tester here http://www.passmark.com/products/usb2test.htm and also usb cable tester will tell you if the cable is connected properly.  After that you can test if the data is passing through untouched.  I'd personally say that covers any kind of scientific test as you can use controls and blind testing on them and the results will be the same.

Sorry everybody, bad day today.

the usb level 1,2 and 3 does refer to the transfer rates though and USB does not carry audio, it carries data.

No worries.

Do I have to say that? Or will some other incantation do? 

No, you lost me when you started talking about making a hash of it.

And this happens in real-time, too, does it? Like when you're playing music, not doing something and then going back and comparing when it's finished doing what it's sposed to do?

Almost as defensive as they do when you dare to challenge their certainties, it seems.

 

not reading the posts correctly today are you? myself and pretty much everybody knows what usb 1,2 and 3 is.....I'm saying that data transfer times also vary between CABLES (not usb standards) and the amount of power they can supply to a device also varies. Call it audio signal, data or audio data....whatever you want my friend, I'm saying that an audiophile cable would be one which is designed specifically for carrying information from a pc to a dac. 

Now can we please just share experiences.....

I believe some USB cables said to be 'audiophile' don't have the power connections, so they only carry data, the claim being that this reduces the potential for interference.