Rick and Steveo,

I looked at the Curious Cable site. The USB cables may be little miracle workers - but, they are just too expensive for my consideration.

I would expect that, if I spent several thousand dollars for improved speaker wires, improved USB cables, and improved power cords, I might very well experience some perceived sound improvements. But, I am just not willing to do so.

I am content with my current equipment, including cables. There is still a future possibility that I might acquire a pair of Reference speakers. Otherwise, I am not in the market for additional gear.

Happy listening to all,

Art

All,

We've been talking primarily about USB cables, but that got me thinking about S/PDIF coax. Right now I'm using a 1 m coax cable between my Oppo digital out and my DAC. Then I ran into this very good article on how short cables can produce multiple reflections that alter the signal and produce jitter.
positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm

So I've ordered a longer cable to see if I can hear a difference.

I also experimented with eliminating the USB extension cable between my SSD and my Oppo. The SSD came supplied with a USB 3.0 cable, which I connected to the 2.0 extension cable. In the experiment I ran the SSD directly into the Oppo (different connector on the Oppo). I went back and forth several times, but I couldn't hear a difference. So back to my extension cable.

Maybe there are differences above my hearing limit, but not for me.

More fuel for the digital cables mystery :

This time, ethernet digital transport. My SONOS system is set up on a separate SONOS.net channel on the 2.4 band to keep it as far as possible from noise from other channels.

I use a SONOS Boost to set up a separate channel for music streaming, to avoid/minimize noise from all the other channel traffic.. The boost takes music feeds direct from the router, and wirelesly sends them to the SONOS Connect, that then feeds that to the receiver.

I had already changed the ethernet connection from the router to the Boost from a stock cat 5 to a better noise isolating cat 7.

Just for the heck of it, I ordered a Audioquest Pearl interconnect to try in that ethernet connection, because it has even better copper, better noise isolation, is unidirectional, is supposed to better preserve timing, etc.

Well, I switched the stock cat 7 and the Audioquest back and forth multiple times.... Yes, there is a difference. The Audioquest played (crisper? a little more brittle? sometimes not musical?). Don't know the exact words to use.

This is all in the feed that goes to the Wyed 4 Sound modified SONOS Connect, that then feeds the Wyred 4 Sound reclocker/upsampler to clean it up again....

The Amazon cat 7 is back on. I'm at a loss. All this is BEFORE the SONOS Connect and Wyred 4 Sound stuff reclocks to clean things up and upsamples anyway. This is NOT a knock on the Audioquest cable! I just don't get all the interactions taking place.

Ain't this a fun, and sometimes puzzling, hobby!

Rick

Rick, I agree. This digital stuff is hard to understand. Your description of the sound of the Audioquest is similar to what I heard when I ran my TV optical directly to the W4S, then optical to my DAC. Before, it ran optical to Oppo to digital coax to DAC. After this change, the sound sounded crisper (almost brittle) on the highest frequency transients. I think that, before, I was losing some high frequency accuracy due to jitter or whatever. However, the sound seems better (clearer) to me.

Wild and crazy stuff for sure.

Charlie

Rick, one other thought. The W4S reclocks, but if there is an erroneous bit, it will get copied and passed along. If something upstream damages the data (bandwidth, noise), then the reclocker can't repair the damage; it only gets rid of the jitter.

Charlie

Thanks, Charlie

One would think that a "better" cable would reduce errors, but who knows....

Rick