
$695 USB cable wins TAS's editors' choice award - sz4kerto
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2013-tas-editors-choice-awards-digital-interconnects/
======
mortenjorck
It's nice when you can have a self-aware laugh occasionally.

This is clearly self-parody from a publication that I gather _is_ serious
about audio hardware, right up to the edge of woo-woo imperceptible stuff, but
probably not over that line.

A lineup of digital interconnects, which by definition are either perfect or
have obvious signal dropouts, combined with language like "neutral without
sounding bleached, dynamic without sounding piercing, detailed without
sounding analytical" is a comical amplification on what I'm guessing is their
usual review style.

This is The Absolute Sound's equivalent to the fake HN frontpage that makes
the rounds now and then.

[edit]

Evidently, I was too quick to give them the benefit of the doubt. It seems
most of the defense around audiophile-grade digital cables is that they
"reduce jitter" (which somehow then translates to noticeable changes in
different areas of the audible spectrum that can be described in wine-
spectator terms) – does anyone have a good link or explanation on this
principle?

~~~
rayiner
Jitter is definitely a real phenomenon: [http://www.tnt-
audio.com/clinica/diginterf1_e.html](http://www.tnt-
audio.com/clinica/diginterf1_e.html). It's easy to forget that these "digital
interconnects" are all fundamentally analog. Whether you can hear the
distortion created by jitter or not is an entirely separate issue.

~~~
paol
That may be true, but this is a USB cable and (IIRC) USB is packet-based.
There is no way that clock jitter can influence the final result.

(edit: upvoted for the informative link, in any case)

~~~
rayiner
USB is packet based, but USB Audio still recovers the clock signal from the
timing of bits on the wire. This recovered clock is used to drive the DAC,
which produces the final analog waveform.

~~~
paol
Interesting! Just read up a little on that, and from here
[http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4376143/2/Fundamentals-
of...](http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4376143/2/Fundamentals-of-USB-Audio)
it appears that is only one of several options (and acknowledged as a bad
choice)

~~~
rayiner
It is only one of several options, but it's also the most common one. It's a
lot more expensive to build a device that operates in isochronous. You need to
have a local buffer, extra compute capability, a high-quality local clock,
etc.

------
ChuckMcM
I want the painted on 'shield pattern' on the cable which keeps outside
interference out of the cable :-)

I had an friend who made up some 'artisan' Ethernet cables on a whim, they had
arrows indicating the direction of enhanced data flow, so you plugged the
arrows facing "in" to your client, and "out" for your server. There were some
cables that had been balanced for both in and out packets but they were twice
as expensive.

------
VLM
The sad part is I'd love to buy a $30 cable thats indestructible cable
shielding and jacket, plenum rated insulation (just because) perfect
dimensions so it fits great, anti-corrosion plated, visual and tactile
indication of which side is up (which I can do with a paint pen but for $30 I
want it done for me). Oh and superflex so in my car at -20F like last week its
still flexy. And of course totally waterproof or at least if it gets wet, once
dried out it'll work perfectly and undamaged.

But no, all we're allowed in a supposedly free market is $3 DX junk, $3 DX
junk marked up to $15 at the brick-mortar store, or $700 audiophool stuff.

~~~
_Adam
While our market may not be as free as I would like it to be, the lack of USB
cable selection is separate from the issue of market freedom.

I like the cable you're describing. If you start selling them, I might buy
one.

You might know this already, but I'll mention it anyways because I was looking
at it recently: there exists something called "ultra flexible wire" that has a
very high strand count compared to normal stranded wire. For example, standard
28 AWG wire has 7 strands of 36 AWG, but ultraflexible 28 AWG has 41 strands
of 44 AWG. This makes it considerably more flexible.

[http://www.daburn.com/2671ultraflexiblesub-
miniaturewire-u/l...](http://www.daburn.com/2671ultraflexiblesub-
miniaturewire-u/lstyle15681692.aspx)

USB/headphone cables made from this wire could be quite a compelling product.

~~~
VLM
A cousin of the superflex antenna wire the "trail radio" ham radio guys use,
or "litz wire" which is handy for certain RF coil purposes WRT skin effect.

I would imagine ultra tiny diameter wire would suffer from strength issues and
fatigue failure. Something like copper plated steel "copperweld" made into
litz wire would be pretty awesome. OR would it? Gold plated into ultra fine
diameter stainless steel insulated individually and braided into a LITZ wire.

Litz wire is not cheap, even the Chinese stuff is significant fraction of a
buck per foot.

If you'd like to see a cable that costs $600 and is fairly priced the
Pasternack company sells truly exotic aerospace microwave cables that are
quite expensive. You know, to hook up the antenna on your space probe, that
kind of thing. Built by hand, individually tested and swept on a network
analyzer, that kind of thing. I buy .mil surplus stuff, made by them, from
ebay (not new). And going the other way if you do broadcast engineering, $600
is a rounding error when installing a 100KW rated feedline for a TV station.
$600 worth of high current service entrance cable for AC power is a
depressingly short length. But $600 for a USB cable is impressive in a totally
different way.

------
deltaqueue
I love that this is still alive and well in 2014.

Psychoacoustics are still very much apart of the audiophile world; although,
the internet has helped reduce the hype to some degree. People believe
whatever they perceive and aren't inherently objective.

A/B tests do crop up from time to time in various audio / video communities
(AVS and some car audio forums hold some pretty objective events) but science
doesn't always provide an answer people want to accept.

~~~
OneOneOneOne
In 2012 I attended an A/B blind test for speaker cables...
[https://sites.google.com/site/audiosocietyofminnesota/Home/a...](https://sites.google.com/site/audiosocietyofminnesota/Home/april-2012-speaker-
cable-listening-test)

It was interesting that there was a preference for the higher priced cables.
It is too bad that I did not save my votes to see if my poorly trained ears
matched what the others preferred. It is hard to say if there is justifiable
benefit in spending big money for cables but I would say it is worth spending
a little bit more than the cost of lamp cord based on this test.

With the digital cables to me it seems like a high data rate, low error rate
and decent buffering system is all that is necessary for good sound. Given the
data rates required for audio (even SACD is in the low MiB/s range) a cheap
USB cable should do the trick.

~~~
epaladin
It makes sense if there was an audible difference with speaker cables,
particularly if the amps were high power and the cables represented a range of
gauges. Trying to power a line array with 22 gauge speaker wire isn't going to
work very well.

The stuff in that article makes monster cable look like a bargain.

~~~
secstate
No, but you can do some pretty straightforward electrical engineering math to
determine that 22-guage speaker wire will fail in that case. Show me the
physics and math that show failure with a USB cable. One of the major issues
here is that USB is like the AK47 of the interconnect world, designed to work
it some pretty terrible places. So when you experience jitter, it not actually
the GD cable, it's most likely one of the devices on either side using a
shitty controller and not handling data loss gracefully.

Audio is so subjective anyway. You'll never win an argument with these people.
You just have walk past them and try not to laugh. It's the same as the issue
on wines. Doesn't matter how many double-blind tastings you do, some assholes
will just sleep better knowing they're not drinking shit I made in my bathtub,
even if it tastes the same a Bogle sauvignon blanc.

------
raganwald
What's the difference between an audiophile and a musicophile?

"An audiophile uses music to listen to stereos."

------
tlrobinson
Can't tell if joke or not.

Have audiophiles gotten The Onion treatment yet? Seems like such low hanging
fruit.

~~~
nine_k
Actually some people _objectively_ (as in 'visible on MRT scans') enjoy
certain things more if they know they are somewhat superior, even if the
'superior' thing is the very same thing as the control 'inferior', just
labeled differently.

There are examples and references in _" Thinking fast and slow"_ by Daniel
Kahneman.

So the sellers of the $700 digital cable actually sell more enjoyable
experience to certain (gullible) people, and do it _exactly_ by putting an
exorbitant price tag and raising hype around an otherwise ordinary USB cable.
They are not in business of selling exact sound reproduction; they are selling
_exquisite experiences_. And for an experience, emotional details are _more_
important than the dull objectivity of spectrograms.

Imagine that you receive a pen as a gift from your loved one, nicely wrapped
and solemnly handed. Compare it with an experience of owning the very same pen
model which you hastily bought in a store for $10 because you needed something
to jot with. The elevated joy of using the gifted pen is not in the pen, but
in you and your experience, your memory. Same applies to audiophile equipment,
collectible postal stamps, etc. The material thing just serves as a reminding
token.

~~~
tlrobinson
Sort of the placebo effect of the audiophile world.

Now, the question is do the people who buy $700 cables not knowing it's
equivalent to a $10 cable get _more_ enjoyment than the people who know
they're equivalent and buy the $10 cable?

If so, that's somewhat sad for us educated people. Ignorance is bliss, I
guess.

~~~
nine_k
I assume you heard about status consumption. The fact of paying $700 (and
people around knowing it) may be the enjoyable thing; for some it's even worth
the $700.

The buyer might even never need to plug the cable in :)

------
jes
I remember mercury filled speaker cables being discussed briefly in the 80s.
[1]

Hypothetical review of such cables:

"This wire lends a liquid transparency to strings. The fluid quality of horns
has to be heard to be believed. There is a silvery quality to the brass, with
no sign of the hard-edged, coppery sound normally associated with speaker
cable...."

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/sci.physics/Ba...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/sci.physics/BaPccdHhJ1k)

~~~
Crito
Hmm, at what point does a wire become a hose?

Also, I am in love with that superconducting cable idea. You could make a
fortune with the razor-blade model selling audiophiles "special" LN2 on a
subscription basis.

------
decasteve
For that price I would expect the cable to follow me around the house/office,
like a snake, and respond to my telepathic commands about where to plug in.

~~~
baddox
I would pay that much for a USB cable that, whenever you blindly reached
behind your PC or monitor to plug it in, would always be oriented correctly
with the plug. Think of all the time saved.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Take a look at all of your USB cables. Check to make sure that the top side of
each connector has the USB logo cut into it deeply enough that it's easily
felt by your thumb, and that there's no such engraving on the back. Throw away
any cables that don't meet this test. It then quickly becomes very easy to
tell when you grab a connector whether your thumb is on the top or bottom, and
it becomes second nature to always plug your cables in correctly.

The USB-IF should deny a USB license to every cable manufacturer who doesn't
do this right.

~~~
mark-r
Except when the socket is vertical instead of horizontal.

~~~
scott_karana
Or the device is reversible top to bottom: horizontal is gone then, too.

(USB power plugs, for example)

------
madaxe_again
For the cost, you could hire an orchestra to live in your basement. Of course,
you'd need to wear electrum goggles and a visor of pure onyx for the best
sound reception, because quantum mechanics.

~~~
acjohnson55
Don't forget to burn them in by having them play 48 hours of noise

~~~
duffdevice
Please, this is nonsense.

It has to be 12 hours of brown noise, followed by 12 hours of pink noise,
followed by 24 hours of white noise.

Really, the amount of misinformation around here about basement orchestra
break-in procedures is astounding.

------
pslam
I still wonder why the people who design and sell these products aren't all in
jail.

"Audiophile" nonsense is a prime example of how consumer protection laws don't
work if you invoke any kind of pseudo-science in your marketing.

~~~
adamnemecek
I would say that the bullshit audiophile products are in a minority and there
certainly are legit audiophile products.

~~~
WalterSear
As a former professional recording engineer, I'd say the opposite.

~~~
TillE
Eh, there's plenty of cheap garbage that you really want to avoid, at least in
the world of analog cables. I've used so many instrument cables that don't
make good contact. At some point I wound up just soldering Neutrik connectors
on to good quality bulk cable.

The advantage Monster has is that their stuff is reliably good and widely
available, even if it is obscenely overpriced.

~~~
ashmud
Re: Monster. I haven't bought any of their stuff in years, but IME their
interconnects were fine, but speaker cables not so much. I ended up
terminating the speaker cables myself after the connectors on the originals
and on the replaced (by Monster) cables fell off.

------
rayiner
This is ridiculous, but its amusing to me that collisions between audiophiles
and computer folks often unearth ignorance on both sides. E.g. The number of
people who think that digital audio means that the signal on a spdif cable is
always identical (ignoring clock recovery). Can you hear it? Who knows. But
all cables are fundamentally analog.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's a cable. It can't do anything weird to the data. If it gets through
intact, it will be identical.

Factors like attenuation and shielding matter in certain circumstances, but
not for a meter of USB.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not really talking about the cable, but the idea that digital interfaces
like SPDIF/USB Audio/HDMI are "bit perfect." The digital phenomenon of bit
perfection, as programmers see it, is a fiction created by buffering, retry,
and error-correction. SPDIF doesn't do any of these, and USB Audio doesn't do
all of these in all modes. SPDIF receivers (and depending on the mode, USB
Audio receivers) will recover the clock signal from the input signal, and use
that clock signal to drive a DAC. So it's not just the sequence of ones and
zeros that is relevant (a digital phenomenon), but the timing of their
appearance on the cable (an analog phenomenon). Variation from the ideal
timing will cause a distorted clock to be recovered by the receiver, which
will cause distortion in the analog signal produced by the DAC. Whether or not
these distortions are audible, they are certainly measurable.

~~~
rdale
In over 100 audiophile bashing posts, at last someone who actually understands
the issues. USB cables have an 'eye pattern' which affects the timing of the
signal presented to the DAC.

If USB cables make a difference, then there is probably an argument for doing
something else (not ignoring the problem because USB cables must be
'perfect'). Like putting the DAC and computer driving the DAC in the same box
and connected by I2S with the DAC as the master.

There are some good articles on the Audiostream site about why 'bit perfect'
doesn't cut it in the context of audio:

[http://www.audiostream.com/category/industry-
voice](http://www.audiostream.com/category/industry-voice)

~~~
Dylan16807
What kind of insane hardware depends on CPU timings and doesn't have a
hardware buffer that always plays at the same speed? Jitter in the
intermediate steps doesn't matter when you're moving digital data from one
place to another, as long as the buffers are larger than the amount of jitter.

DAC is hard. Moving a couple megabits of data five feet over a cable with
multi-millisecond buffers is not hard.

I don't think it's even possible to use USB for 100%-throughput unbuffered
data. I call bullshit on the eye pattern affecting playback.

Just because a difference technically exists in some circumstances with an
oscilloscope does not mean it makes a difference in normal use cases.

Also wow that site called wireless a 'potential long-term health risk'.

~~~
rayiner
What you're describing isn't as easy as it sounds. In order to have a
"hardware buffer that always plays at the same speed" you need a high-quality
locally generated clock, plus a decent amount of local buffering. But in a USB
audio device or SPDIF device, you can't run a totally independent clock,
because it will get out of sync with the clock on the host device sending the
data. There are various tricks to get around this (e.g. having a feedback loop
using a sideband), but it's actually a non-trivial problem. See:
[http://www.cypress.com/?docID=45044](http://www.cypress.com/?docID=45044) for
one approach. Most USB audio devices don't even attempt to do this. They try
and recover the host machine's playback clock using the timing of USB SOF
packets (which are sent every millisecond-ish) plus the timing of the USB
audio data packets it receives.

~~~
Dylan16807
Yes, sure, those things are hard, and they have _nothing whatsoever to do with
the quality of passive components like cables, as long as they are not in the
failure range_. Or anything to do with working-transceiver quality except when
it comes to the clocks that the transceivers are using.

When you talk about jitter introducing significant distortion based on packet
timing, that's something that can only happen in two ways: either the audio
receiver is using an absolute garbage clock, or it's using an absolute garbage
and shortsighted algorithm for adjusting its clock rate, and not trying for a
stable sync. The quality of transceiver and cable components is not a factor.

------
diceless
Poked around their site, it's definitely caters to the rich who are dumb and
think a 600 dollar usb cable will make their digital sound files sound better
on their 60K speakers driven by their 100K amp. I've seen references to a $300
dollar power cable that they think is a steal. The site is real, just
ludicrous.

------
sanoli
Link to audiophile-cable vs coat-hanger-used-as-audio-cable blind test:

[http://consumerist.com/2008/03/03/do-coat-hangers-sound-
as-g...](http://consumerist.com/2008/03/03/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-
monster-cables/)

~~~
elipsey
thanks for that, i lolled :)

------
DanBC
Has anyone on HN been tempted to pander to the audiophile crowd?

Making some simple one metre long cables would be cheap enough, even using
exotic materials, and the markup is huge.

~~~
jumbled
I'm into it. Want to start a business?

~~~
sanoli
I'd go with maglev cables. Have some sort of base or track on the floor that
would keep the cables levitated. Less strain on the metals inside. A clearer
path to your audio purity.

------
elipsey
I guess it must be a joke.... Ha.

This reminds of some guys I knew in the 90's when CD burners were newer that
swore that the gold cdr's sounded better then the blue ones. I tried to tell
them how digital audio works, but it didn't help. One of them decided the gold
ones had a lower error rate. Conclusion in search of a mechanism/hypothesis.

If 16 gauge lamp cord was good enough for Paul Klipsch, then it's good enough
for me.

------
timje1
_Diamond USB has a relaxed quality that fosters deep musical involvement._

It's a parody.

~~~
selectodude
That, and they have a $15 Belkin cable at the bottom.

~~~
georgemcbay
Even better (or worse depending upon whether this is actually a parody or
not.. sadly I don't think it is) is that they refer to the $15 Belkin cable as
"ridiculously inexpensive". I feel like a chump when I'm forced to buy a a USB
cable for more than a couple of bucks (usually because I need it _right now_
and thus monoprice, et al aren't an option).

~~~
sliverstorm
I think I have had exactly that cable in the past, and it was a quality piece
of cable. I know most people vote "buy the $0.02 cable", but after buying some
truly _cheap_ cables, I have come to appreciate cables with decent
construction. Yes, they both pass data the same, but only one falls out and
falls apart.

Oh, and shielding. You never get shielding on cheap cables. Doesn't matter for
USB, but I've never appreciated my stereo or headphones picking up an incoming
call to my cell.

~~~
freehunter
As a guitarist, I've played with many, many cheap cables. They all sound the
same, except when I take a step to the side. At that point, there's two types
of cables: the ones that continue carrying the note you're playing, and the
ones that cause your amp to emit the most godawful sounds you've ever heard.

The difference in the cables, of course, being the quality of the construction
on the plugs.

~~~
daeken
I've gone through a ton of cheap guitar cables, and then one of my housemates
got a Canare cable. Ever since, it's all we buy -- insanely high quality
construction, and it has a sheath over the sleeve of the guitar side, which
cuts off signal when you unplug. No more having to kill your amp to disconnect
your guitar. They're a bit on the pricey side, but not bad at all considering
what you get. (What I normally buy:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004I46DS2/ref=wms_ohs_prod...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004I46DS2/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
)

~~~
freehunter
Nice, I'll take a look at those. The cables I'm using right now have to break
at some point.

------
Marazan
The best example of this kind of crazy thinking is the massive volume of
articles you'll get from the audiophile community about how Blind AB audio
test are flawed because when they do the test blinded they can't hear the
difference between the expensive and the cheap components but when they do the
test unblinded they can instantly hear the difference.

It's funny every time.

~~~
Marazan
I found my favourite

[http://www.avguide.com/forums/blind-listening-tests-are-
flaw...](http://www.avguide.com/forums/blind-listening-tests-are-flawed-
editorial?page=1)

------
alexhawdon
Better cables == sharper corners on your bits. Fact.

;)

~~~
mpweiher
They enhance your Word documents! Really!

~~~
btgeekboy
Support for Excel documents is coming in a future version. Upgrade pricing
will be available!

------
cpher
Back before I was married, in 1999 or so, I fell for the "premium" cable ruse.
I spent $150+ on some component video cables for my Sony XBR high-end, CRT TV
(this was pre-HDTV). I didn't believe in the audiophile stuff (they were
crazy), but _video_ quality could certainly be distinguished by an "amateur."

One month ago, my Comcast DVR's HDMI port failed, and I had to dig out my old
component video cables for my 7-year-old plasma TV. They worked perfectly,
after 15 years. But the quality is no different than the $2 Amazon-branded
HDMI cables. My lesson: 1) premium audio cables are bullshit; 2) premium video
cables are bullshit too.

------
epsylon
The top rated comment and its subsequent discussion are golden:

 _I am a retired sound engineer who spent a lifetime in major sound studios
and I can state categorically that there wasn 't a one cable in all those
recording studios that cost more than a dollar or so per foot. Keep in mind
that I'm talking about recording studios that cost in the millions and where
the search for the right sound is an obsession. A cable's only function is to
carry what goes in one end out to the other. To talk about the sound altering
effects of cable is heresy. They can't and they don't. It's marketing hype._

------
mark-r
My favorite part is where the $275 USB cable is described as "mid-priced".

I subscribed to The Absolute Sound for many years, and found it to be useful
in many respects. If you're going to put together a sound system that sounds
anywhere close to realistic you need to be open minded and insanely dedicated.
In this case though it seems clear they've gone off the deep end.

------
mpweiher
If this is parody...then it's golden!

~~~
yoodenvranx
No, unfortunately it is not a parody!

There is so much bullshit going on... It's really really sad.

Do some research on jplay for example:
[http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9285...](http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=92856)

------
gorrillamcd
I decided to check the prices on those cables and was surprised to find that
some are even more expensive. For example, an AudioQuest "Diamond" USB to iPod
cable runs $1,495! Here's the link: [http://www.bestbuy.com/site/audioquest-
diamond-16-4-usb-a-to...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/audioquest-
diamond-16-4-usb-a-to-apple-ipod-ipad-cable-black-
gray/4759942.p?id=1218523201475&skuId=4759942)

------
neals
You can all laugh, but I use these types of cables to copy data to my portable
HD and I have never experienced any data loss since I started using them. So
there.

------
Tloewald
In a slightly related story, our CMS team believes that there's a problem
unique to PNG files that prevents them from being stored in alfresco.

------
eponeponepon
Strewth. What exactly do these people think they're getting for their money?
And how do their beliefs proliferate? Is it like religion, where the guy who
misinforms you doesn't believe he's misinforming you? Or crack-pushing, where
the guy knows he's doing wrong?

~~~
VLM
If you were asking seriously, the best analogy I can think of for audiophile /
consumer electronics is the car biz, its merely the traditional conflict
between marketing and engineering.

I recently bought a really nicely engineered car, I researched the history of
the engine development and last decade of its production, its awesome, long
term reliability, the power train is awesome but the rest of the car is pretty
good too. But marketing advertisements claimed it came with not one but two
attractively dressed hot young women, donuts, and a park pass. Trying to
analyze how they thought those three items will excite every member of the
general public is amusing. Anyway I think one department may have been lying
to me / ripped me off.

~~~
eponeponepon
Yeah, I was absolutely asking seriously :)

It's easy enough to see how someone who doesn't understand the basic science
could be taken in by some of the claims made for these cables - what I can't
make my mind up on is whether the people _selling_ them know and understand
that they're lying.

(edit: to be clear, I'm as sure as I can be that the people _producing_ the
things must know that they're liars)

------
lelf
Classic [http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Cable-
Version/pr...](http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Cable-
Version/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1)

------
martingoodson
Seems like the whole industry can be explained by the Asch paradigm
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments))

------
sanoli
Audiophiles should just say they buy these for the aesthetics. Then nobody can
mock, er, I mean, argue with their buying choices. Some of the stuff does look
good.

------
kyleblarson
I'm picking up strong readings on my douchiness radar.

------
olssonm
Ha... Now, they could at least tell us how their tests were done.

Something tells me that they could se the price tag and brand while they were
testing them.

------
izzydata
I wonder if there is a correlation between religious people and audiophiles.

------
nathan_f77
I'm still not sure if I was reading something like The Onion.

------
patrickg_zill
It is hilarious ... a friend of mine builds high end, custom, all-digital
(Class D) amplifiers. Basically, if you want a good review, you have to give
the reviewer a free unit.

