USB cable..what do you have.

With all due respect Istanbulu, I'm not going into the file types and all that stuff. It's $.50 cents. Try it or don't...

I mean if a guy with $4k worth of USB cables and a Diverter HR tells me to try a fifty cent cable, unless I'm a CABLE MANUFACTURER trying to save face, I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out if he ripped his files in aiff or wav format.... I'd take the fifty cent challenge.

Next time you want to spend 4K on cables, you may want to use it to enroll in a physics class and save yourself a lot more money in the future. :^)

I'm very new to computer audio. In fact, still quite ignorant of all of this. My first venture was to get a DACmini from Centrance for my iMac and Audioengine A2 speakers. When on the phone, I asked about USB cables and was told that the ones they use have a very high RI rejection factor and that's about it. These guys are one of the major players in this market (chip design, buffer implementation, Apple and PC consultants, with a long list of manufacturers that wish to remain nameless, not to mention Lavry, Apogee, Benchmark, TI, BB, AKM, etc.)

It seems that proper shielding is of paramount importance. They go on to state that all data coming over a USB cable is in packets and comes in bursts-never in a continuous stream- and as a result you need a really good buffer on the receiving end. It seems it doesn't really matter on which side of the USB cable the clocking is done. I know this is raising a lot of hackles at various sites but I'll take their word for now as this can get real expensive real fast.

By the way, their headphone amp on the DACmini is really sweet.

Larry, I have a degree in elec eng thus I have had more than a year of physics as well as A course in waveform analysis (read Applied Laplace Transforms) continuous as well as discrete mathematical study. I also took another year of physics when working towards my Masters in Chemistry. I think I have a fair grasp of the the theory of electrical propagation of encoded data down a pipeline. Thanks for the concern, I can manage my money :)