USB to External Hardrive does USB cable matter?

Thanks Al. I went ahead an ordered a 50 foot Cat 7 cable at $16 bucks , what the hey...

Al, can you recommend a shielded 50 foot Cat 6 cable?

Hi Ozzy,

I think that what would be most ideal is a cable having both an individual shield around each twisted pair of wires that are within the cable, and an overall shield surrounding all of the wires. That kind of cable will be denoted as either S/STP or S/FTP. I'm sure that such cables are available in CAT 6 or 6A, but after a very quick look I didn't find any in the right length. You may want to research that further.

I believe that CAT 7 cables, however, always have that kind of double shielding, and are backwards compatible with CAT 6 when supplied with either an RJ45 or GG45 connector. The double shielding causes them to be somewhat thicker, btw, if that makes any difference to you.

Here are some suitable 50 foot CAT 7 cables.

Here is further information about CAT 7.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks everyone for your responses.
As I posted, I have been using a cheapo 5 meter USB cable and to me it sounds ok.
But, could it sound better with a better cable? I personally think not. But, I am always one who will not be satisfied until I actually try it.
So, I ordered a DH Labs USB 5 meter cable based on the recent Positive feedback review.
I believe Dh has a 30 day money back guarantee.

Al, can you recommend a shielded 50 foot Cat 6 cable?

I second Kijanki's comments, especially given that the USB cable is a long distance away from the audio system, which most likely eliminates the possibility that rfi could radiate from the cable into the system.

If your ethernet cable is the unshielded type, though, it MIGHT be worthwhile replacing it with a shielded ethernet cable, to prevent radiation of rfi from it into the system. See BryonCunningham's recent thread. There is a lot of unrelated discussion in that thread, but you can use your browser's "find" function to quickly find the posts that mention "ethernet."

Very conceivably Bryon's findings were system and setup specific, and might not be applicable to your system. But ethernet cables are cheap, so it might be worthwhile trying that if your present ethernet cable is unshielded. If the body of the plugs on the cable are plastic rather than metal, the cable is unshielded. Some additional guidelines on how to tell whether the cable is shielded or unshielded are discussed in the thread.

Regards,
-- Al

What Kijanki said... There was one member I corresponded with before privately where he did tell me the quality of the USB cable b/w Hard Drive and computer/laptop did matter. With a 5 Meter run would you also maybe need a signal booster?

I second Kijanki 100%.

It should not matter since music on hard drive has no timing but I bet you'll find somebody claiming big sonic difference.