USB Cable Ridge Street Audio/Synergistic Research

I suppose in the end it will be a matter of having to try it to really "know". Still I'd like to try to understand the science behind it. I read the technical information on the Ridgestreet site but I couldn't glean why anything they claimed that their cable does affects the sonic product. Surely there's a way to describe effective benefits of a cable in terms of what it transmits (or does not transmit) to the DAC and why it's beneficial. In other words, if comparing cable A to cable B . . .

If bits are bits then
If the differences are bit-related then
- does A change fewer bit values than B?
- does A transmit with less data loss (null values) than B?
- does A transmit data with better timing than B?
- does A reduce a need to resend data over B?
- some other effect?
If the benefits are not bit-related then
- does A limit superfluous energy sent to the DAC better than B?
- some other effect?
If bits are not bits then
What about the nature of bits (not the value) affects the performance?

I'm not trying to dispute anyone's claim of sonic superiority of A over B. I would just like to know why . . . even just a rough idea . . . before spending hundreds of dollars on something that I don't remotely understand. Again, a previous poster stated that the superiority of some USB cables "is not just a subjective opinion." So what's the fact or theory behind them?

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>I would just like to know why . . . even just a rough idea . . . before spending hundreds of dollars on something that I don't remotely understand.<

M3pilot... probably like that old movie conversation in which one guy says...

"those that knows ain't saying..."

I don't really understand how that electricity comes into my house and powers my whatevers... but I still use it and mostly enjoy and appreciate everything it does for me.

:) listening,

Ed

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M3pilot:

Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio posted some thoughts in this Computer Audiophile thread as to why different USB cables may sound different.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/node/209

The reason why USB cables don't matter when it comes to connecting hard drives and data retrieval and such is because there are multiple layers of error correction involved. If data is passed over a network, the TCP protocl will handle checksums and retransmissions if data does not match. The OS will also verify that data is written/retrieved perfectly.

USB audio OTOH, is handled in a streaming fashion, meaning the data is sent and forgotten about by the computer. That DAC doesn't respond back with a 'hey I got everything!'

The best way to handle this is to have some connection-oriented protocol between the DAC and transport, that way data that reaches the DAC is perfect regardless of the cable. Why this hasn't been done, I don't know.