- Thread Author
- #1
Let me start by saying, there was not too much science or objectivity involved in this comparison. I don't have the time or patience.
If it's gonna bug you to not see triple blind testing resulting in a consensus of audiophile reviewers supported by test measurements, this ain't the comparison for you.... please don't flame me for my subjectivity and sloppiness.
That said, this is a discussion of my short and somewhat productive journey through USB cable selection for my digital front end.
It all started with a comparison of my newly installed Ethernet Bridge II (PS Audio DirectStream Ethernet renderer), to the USB output of the Lumin U1. I was surprised to find that my initial gut reaction was that USB sounded better to me. Being a systems/network engineer by training, I was rooting for Ethernet.
The extent of my subjective objectivity is this: I know what I like, characteristics of which include:
-- a wide and tall soundstage with good instrument separation and placement precision
-- good speed/clarity and punch; perhaps what some would call on the "analytic" side
-- 3 dimensional and natural sounding instruments. I want a guitar to sound as close as I know it from playing, Sax too, etc. I like vocals that sound like I could imagine them being on a stage about 10-15 feet away. I want to hear hall sounds.
So what I look for in trialing something new is, "does this get me closer to those characteristics, and if not all, which and am I willing to forfeit what's missing for what's better". Really simple as that. I don't keep records, I just either eliminate something as too much a step backward or keep it, sometimes going back and forth when there's not an immediate winner.
I started with a simple 1m Audioquest Forest USB. Low end, because I thought Ethernet was going to be a clear winner. When it wasn't, I started looking for improvements in the USB chain. I added an Intona and 1m HiDiamond HID USB cable. An improvement on pretty much all dimensions. They stayed.
I read about people using two USB regen/cleaning devices chained and thought that was interesting. If 1 is good why wouldn't 2 be better? (sarcasm, I do see that this won't necessarily be true). For fun I added the iFi MicroUSB3.0 and a HiDiamond Reference USB. Again, better on all dimensions. To my ear, an order of magnitude so. They stayed.
So my reference setup: AQ Forest > Intona >
I felt I had a solid "system" now.... good cables (with possible exception of the Forest), with 2 different, well-regarded USB "clean-up" technologies ensuring my DAC got the best USB signal possible. As we all tend, my next thought was "good enough isn't good enough, there must be better". I started looking for USB cable shoot-outs and found some cables I wanted to swap in. But first, to my old standby.... HiDiamond had a new "reference" USB cable, the HiDiamond 1 USB, and that needed a try (my experience with HiDiamond over the years has been excellent; they've replaced almost every other high quality cable I've tried in almost every position).
Four USB cables got ordered around the same time... an Audioquest Diamond USB, the Curious Cable Regen link, a Transparent USB, and the HiDiamond 1 USB.
First in was the Curious Cable Regen link. Long story short, the Regen link and the Intona don't get along. Regardless of which position in the chain I had the Regen link, I couldn't get a signal. Emails to Intona didn't get replies for a lonnng time, so I poked around and found that older Intona's didn't always cooperate well with some cables and that a firmware update typically fixed the problem. Well, didn't matter to me since I couldn't get an answer from Intona (eventually I did but they told me what I'd read was wrong so back to square 1 in any case). I took the Intona out and tried the Regen link with just the HD Ref on the other side. Sounded better to me the other way, so back in went the Intona and back to my Reference setup. With Intona out and Curious in, things just sounded flat and anemic to me, comparing unfavorably on pretty much every dimension I value.
AQ Diamond USB arrived next, which replaced the HiDiamond HID USB. Same exact problem as the Curious cable with the Intona. Except this time, the AQ Diamond without the Intona made for a surprisingly (not due to reputation but due to my skepticism) big improvement in every key dimension. So now, Intona came out and AQ Diamond was in.
My new Reference USB chain: HiDiamond Reference USB > iFi Micro USB3.0 > AQ Diamond USB
I really could have stopped right here. The sound had everything I like in spades. But that would be no fun and anyway I had the Transparent USB cable inbound, and I was bothered that the Curious cable wasn't working out given it's reputation. Oh yeah, and HiDiamond had a new "better" USB cable; that itch wasn't going unscratched.
Short version of the rest....
Transparent wasn't an improvement regardless of position in the chain. Tried putting Intona back in (and taking AQ Diamond out in order to test the Transparent in every variation), but while it was actually excellent on all fronts, it just wasn't quite as excellent as the other cables. If pushed I'd probably give it about even with the HiDiamond HID USB, not sure I could really tell much difference there, but I just sort of had "better feels" with the HID, so the Transparent came out, and with it the Intona once again came out so I could keep the AQ Diamond.
Next up, the HiDiamond 1 USB came in. I replaced the HID, kept the Intona out (every variation said, "keep the AQ Diamond in" rather than the Intona). And wow, once again a lightyears improvement on every dimension. This cable combined with the AQ Diamond and iFi are the killer combination for me.
My new - and current - Reference USB chain: AQ Diamond > iFi Micro USB3.0 > HiDiamond 1 USB
For whatever reason the AQ didn't sound as good in the last position in the chain as the HiDiamond does. I flipped-flopped these 3 or 4 times and always came out thinking "all is good with AQ last, but leaving me feeling foot-tappingly/PRAT-appreciatingly better with HiDiamond last position". I even tried swapping the Curious Cable back in but couldn't achieve the double-Diamond magic.
So there you have it. Imo this combo is certainly worth a try, but I am a great believer in system synergy and personal SQ priorities/taste and it always surprises me how good ears among us can hear very different things. But it's all fun to me, something to do on a rainy day. YMMV.
If it's gonna bug you to not see triple blind testing resulting in a consensus of audiophile reviewers supported by test measurements, this ain't the comparison for you.... please don't flame me for my subjectivity and sloppiness.
That said, this is a discussion of my short and somewhat productive journey through USB cable selection for my digital front end.
It all started with a comparison of my newly installed Ethernet Bridge II (PS Audio DirectStream Ethernet renderer), to the USB output of the Lumin U1. I was surprised to find that my initial gut reaction was that USB sounded better to me. Being a systems/network engineer by training, I was rooting for Ethernet.
The extent of my subjective objectivity is this: I know what I like, characteristics of which include:
-- a wide and tall soundstage with good instrument separation and placement precision
-- good speed/clarity and punch; perhaps what some would call on the "analytic" side
-- 3 dimensional and natural sounding instruments. I want a guitar to sound as close as I know it from playing, Sax too, etc. I like vocals that sound like I could imagine them being on a stage about 10-15 feet away. I want to hear hall sounds.
So what I look for in trialing something new is, "does this get me closer to those characteristics, and if not all, which and am I willing to forfeit what's missing for what's better". Really simple as that. I don't keep records, I just either eliminate something as too much a step backward or keep it, sometimes going back and forth when there's not an immediate winner.
I started with a simple 1m Audioquest Forest USB. Low end, because I thought Ethernet was going to be a clear winner. When it wasn't, I started looking for improvements in the USB chain. I added an Intona and 1m HiDiamond HID USB cable. An improvement on pretty much all dimensions. They stayed.
I read about people using two USB regen/cleaning devices chained and thought that was interesting. If 1 is good why wouldn't 2 be better? (sarcasm, I do see that this won't necessarily be true). For fun I added the iFi MicroUSB3.0 and a HiDiamond Reference USB. Again, better on all dimensions. To my ear, an order of magnitude so. They stayed.
So my reference setup: AQ Forest > Intona >
HiDiamond HID USB > iFi Micro > HiDiamond Reference USB
I felt I had a solid "system" now.... good cables (with possible exception of the Forest), with 2 different, well-regarded USB "clean-up" technologies ensuring my DAC got the best USB signal possible. As we all tend, my next thought was "good enough isn't good enough, there must be better". I started looking for USB cable shoot-outs and found some cables I wanted to swap in. But first, to my old standby.... HiDiamond had a new "reference" USB cable, the HiDiamond 1 USB, and that needed a try (my experience with HiDiamond over the years has been excellent; they've replaced almost every other high quality cable I've tried in almost every position).
Four USB cables got ordered around the same time... an Audioquest Diamond USB, the Curious Cable Regen link, a Transparent USB, and the HiDiamond 1 USB.
First in was the Curious Cable Regen link. Long story short, the Regen link and the Intona don't get along. Regardless of which position in the chain I had the Regen link, I couldn't get a signal. Emails to Intona didn't get replies for a lonnng time, so I poked around and found that older Intona's didn't always cooperate well with some cables and that a firmware update typically fixed the problem. Well, didn't matter to me since I couldn't get an answer from Intona (eventually I did but they told me what I'd read was wrong so back to square 1 in any case). I took the Intona out and tried the Regen link with just the HD Ref on the other side. Sounded better to me the other way, so back in went the Intona and back to my Reference setup. With Intona out and Curious in, things just sounded flat and anemic to me, comparing unfavorably on pretty much every dimension I value.
AQ Diamond USB arrived next, which replaced the HiDiamond HID USB. Same exact problem as the Curious cable with the Intona. Except this time, the AQ Diamond without the Intona made for a surprisingly (not due to reputation but due to my skepticism) big improvement in every key dimension. So now, Intona came out and AQ Diamond was in.
My new Reference USB chain: HiDiamond Reference USB > iFi Micro USB3.0 > AQ Diamond USB
I really could have stopped right here. The sound had everything I like in spades. But that would be no fun and anyway I had the Transparent USB cable inbound, and I was bothered that the Curious cable wasn't working out given it's reputation. Oh yeah, and HiDiamond had a new "better" USB cable; that itch wasn't going unscratched.
Short version of the rest....
Transparent wasn't an improvement regardless of position in the chain. Tried putting Intona back in (and taking AQ Diamond out in order to test the Transparent in every variation), but while it was actually excellent on all fronts, it just wasn't quite as excellent as the other cables. If pushed I'd probably give it about even with the HiDiamond HID USB, not sure I could really tell much difference there, but I just sort of had "better feels" with the HID, so the Transparent came out, and with it the Intona once again came out so I could keep the AQ Diamond.
Next up, the HiDiamond 1 USB came in. I replaced the HID, kept the Intona out (every variation said, "keep the AQ Diamond in" rather than the Intona). And wow, once again a lightyears improvement on every dimension. This cable combined with the AQ Diamond and iFi are the killer combination for me.
My new - and current - Reference USB chain: AQ Diamond > iFi Micro USB3.0 > HiDiamond 1 USB
For whatever reason the AQ didn't sound as good in the last position in the chain as the HiDiamond does. I flipped-flopped these 3 or 4 times and always came out thinking "all is good with AQ last, but leaving me feeling foot-tappingly/PRAT-appreciatingly better with HiDiamond last position". I even tried swapping the Curious Cable back in but couldn't achieve the double-Diamond magic.
So there you have it. Imo this combo is certainly worth a try, but I am a great believer in system synergy and personal SQ priorities/taste and it always surprises me how good ears among us can hear very different things. But it's all fun to me, something to do on a rainy day. YMMV.
