2. digital
  3. 160707-150037

A long harsh digital trip - final meter?

So the digital signal manages to find its way to a utility pole in front of your house. Then enjoys a coaxial sprint to a modem, and then head over to a modem, router and then into a Roon nucleus. Up to this point, a rugged unprotected harsh trip. And now this signal flows along a very refined ubs cable and arrives at a dac for final prep work before reaching a high end system. 
      So why does the final leg of the signal’s journey inside a usb cable seem to matter so much toward improving sound quality? What happens here to revive a digital signal that has traveled hundreds of disgusting dirty miles to reach the analogue chamber of rebirth? So I guess it’s possible to truly transform and correct a digital signal during a very short journey thru a usb cable?
emergingsoul
emergingsoul OP
1,211 posts
 
Do they sell usb cables without power wire?

cardas sells a $400 usb cable that separates the power wire, ie ‘high speed cable’
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Good lord. Take a generic USB cable make sure it works, cover pin 1 which is the + with a small piece of electrical tape. Cut very small strip use tweezers cover only pin 1.  Compare to the $ 400 cable  to the covered pin cable and a regular cable get a friend to help do it without knowing which is which. 

Note. If your DAC can't cope with pin 1 it's garbage. 
emergingsoul OP
1,211 posts
 
Oh, great idea.   I’d prefer spending more money, but this seems more prudent. Now searching for audiophile grade electrical tape.
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
djones51, what you have suggested in terms of sound enhancement, I have no comment, as I have not done so. However, as to methodology, if you do not treat all the cables similarly, you are not showing superiority one cable over the other; you are showing a potentially efficacious method.

What if that method was applied to all the cables? Have you tried such a comparison?

BTW, have you actually done the comparison you suggest? 
djones51
4,947 posts
 
No, I haven't but then again I was never obsessed with + voltage on a USB cable and I doubt the OP was either until the babble. It's just a simple test to show it's irrelevant. 
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