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Things have gone in various directions in this thread (which is fine), but I would like to refocus back to USB cabling.
All cables including USB cables are system dependent and user dependent and some combination of the two.
My best receommendation is that if you are looking for inexpensive USB cabling (in other words, if cost is the most important criterion) then an abundance of cables are available that are under $100. In that category you will find some much better than others, and many a whole lot worse than others.
But in order to find that out, you can't listen to people like me make referrals for you to make your decisions: you will have to break each of them in (sometimes 100s of hours running the computer into the DAC), listening to what you hear, and makign comparisons based upon adequately broken-in USB cables... that's the due diligence of cabling comparisons.
If you choose the inexpensive route, I suggest the cryoparts line of options:
http://www.cryo-parts.com/usb_cable.html
Many careful users of USB cables have been highly impressed by their performance to price ratio. (These same users have been highly impressed by the Ridge Street Audio Poeima USB line.
:) listening,
Ed
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