USB Cable: Does it make any difference ?

Paul

Paul

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2013
Messages
4,977
Location
Toronto,Ontario
Currently, I'm using the Frutech USB Pro cable and thinking to upgrade them. Do they make a huge difference in sounds quality?

If so what is the best cable you have/had so far?

The Audience, WW and Audioquest Diamond are on my list.

Thanks
 
It does, in my experience. The best I tried, and now use systematically for shows, is this: artisansilvercables.com/ussusb-double.htm

Great value too.
 
They most certainly do. I've tried a few different cables. Sometimes the difference is very recognizable and sometimes it's very subtle. The best I've heard so far was the Wireworld Platinum Starlight. Of course, YMMV.
 
Though I use AES exclusively now, I've found bigger differences between USB cables more than any other types of cables, except maybe for power cords. I highly endorse Wireworld Platinum USB.
 
Here is an excerpt from a recent (last week) Quarter Notes newsletter I send to Get Better Sound owners. The previous (and expensive) USB cable I had been using was the Light Harmonic split LightSpeed:


Curious cable – including 200MM Curious REGEN jumper

I tried out the Curious USB cable that everyone has been discussing. I found that it continued along the path of less mechanical sound and more musical involvement. While it isn’t exactly cheap, it handily outperformed the far more expensive USB cable that I had been using, in all of the ways that I value musically. I also picked up the special 200mm cable for the REGEN that I mentioned in the last QNs to replace the hard adaptor supplied by Uptone Audio. Another nice improvement! You can pick one up yourself at http://www.curiouscables.com.
 
Does the 200mm Curious USB cable for the REGEN outperform the hard adaptor?

 
Paul said:
I'm curious for sure. :) did you get your cable straight from them ? Any problem with shipping ?
Click to expand...

Yes Paul, I ordered it directly from them. It took 9 day to make its way from Australia, arriving yesterday. I'm going to burn it in for 50 or so hours before I do some A/B testing with my AES/EBU cable.
 
A very timely post for me to read as I have been thinking about some USB cable experimenting.
I currently use the Telleruim Q Blue cable and it does get very good reviews. Lately i have bought some GIK acoustic room treatments to help with the brightness in my system. They have worked. So this has got me thinking that maybe a different USB cable may also help. I was looking at the two mentioned here, the silver artisan and the Curious cable to try with my Melco and Devialet set up
 
RLL1 said:
Yes Paul, I ordered it directly from them. It took 9 day to make its way from Australia, arriving yesterday. I'm going to burn it in for 50 or so hours before I do some A/B testing with my AES/EBU cable.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rick, Let us know how you like them after break in. :)
 
Hey Paul - The AQ cable I mentioned was the 'Carbon' - which is significantly more affordable than the Diamond. However, I believe there is at least one reviewer who compared the Curious to the AQ Diamond - and ended up preferring the former by quite a wide margin.
 
I noticed a difference between external hard drive and media player by adding a Kimber silver USB cable.
 
Jim Smith said:
Here is an excerpt from a recent (last week) Quarter Notes newsletter I send to Get Better Sound owners. The previous (and expensive) USB cable I had been using was the Light Harmonic split LightSpeed:


Curious cable – including 200MM Curious REGEN jumper

I tried out the Curious USB cable that everyone has been discussing. I found that it continued along the path of less mechanical sound and more musical involvement. While it isn’t exactly cheap, it handily outperformed the far more expensive USB cable that I had been using, in all of the ways that I value musically. I also picked up the special 200mm cable for the REGEN that I mentioned in the last QNs to replace the hard adaptor supplied by Uptone Audio. Another nice improvement! You can pick one up yourself at http://www.curiouscables.com.
Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

I question if the Curious cable offers any material improvement over other similarly designed solid silver USB cables such as the Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7? Other than the separation of the copper power cable from the main silver cable, I see very little difference from a design standpoint. Has anyone A-B'd the Curious and WW Platinum 7 USB cables?

Best,
Ken
 
I am a little late to the party but last year we did a shoot out with usb cables at my house with 5 guys with high end systems.
The cables used were a WW Platinum and Starlight Red, a $600 Lightspeed and a Pangea silver. We tried the cables with and without a Regen. The results were eye opening. What we found was that all the cables sounded different and that the cables are system dependent. The Regen also made just about all of the cables sound very similar.


Without the Regen-

We all agreed that the WW Platinum sounded the best. It was fairly neutral with a hint of warmth and plenty of detail.

The Starlight Red was very warm but veiled sounding.

The Lightspeed was way too bright and very irritating and sibilant. It was the most detailed however. ( interestingly, the guy that owns this cable, also owns the WW Platinum and prefers the Lightspeed in his system. I have heard his system and the LS does not sound bright and it sounds nothing like it does in my system)

The worst sounding was the Pangea. It was bright and thin sounding.


With the Regen, the veiled sound of the Starlight was lifted, most of the brightness of the Lightspeed was gone and all the cables sounded very similar with subtle differences. The WW Platinum still sounded the best. The Pangea still sounded bad, bright, thin but the sound was improved some.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top