For those of you who want to buy a Chinese made cable, be my guest. The fact is that this technology really works and few tools address the problem. The DoukMall product doesn't actually come with a power supply.
USB Disruptor is hand made in the USA, tested by me personally, and includes an outstanding power supply for nearly the same cost as a Chinese made import.
This is not a blatant advertisement either, it's sharing information with my audiophile brothers. We're mostly men, we spend a lot, and we demand a lot. I'm giving back to you guys by sharing my learnings, and if I can help you reach sonic bliss, then great. If you want to buy my product, good, if not, that's okay too. |
And one more thing about the DoukMall product: if you plug it into a separate USB port on your computer to act as the power then you're not disrupting the computer noise at all. For that product to work like USB Disruptor you have to plug it into a completely separate wall outlet. Doesn't look like it comes with that piece. So it's incomplete! |
Czarivey, do you connect your computer to your DAC with one of those Walmart USB cables? Because if you do, then you're being robbed of dynamics, atmosphere, tones that soothe, and silence between notes. It's not the USB cable, it's the computer. And you can't fix it unless you disrupt the dirty 5 volt power that the computer generates. It's common sense this power is dirty - think of the millions of circuits those electrons must flow through, think of hard drive noises, and all the operations being conducted in the background. That causes noise. And that noise goes into your stereo if it is physically connected to your computer by means of a USB cable. Even if you have a device, it doesn't matter what it does, it's still connected to the computer, and that is the problem.
So to make your USB DAC sound how it's supposed to sound, you need to supply a clean power connection to the USB cable, separate from the computer. There are few products that do this. Some of them have been mentioned above.
With one of these products your Walmart cables will sound at least as good as the expensive audio grade USB cable I used to test USB Disruptor.
Good luck. |
Mapman, I tried a lot of USB cables while testing and they all sound equally bad running direct from the usb output port. When you disrupt the computer's 5 volt USB power line in many cases you get a really big improvement. And this improvement was not due to USB cables of one flavor or another, because when AB testing those units running the disruptor I couldn't tell one from another.
This finding is consistent with the logic of digital signal processing. There should not be a difference, not according to what we know, real and theoretical.
However, it is likely that some USB cable designs do in fact reject some of the USB power noise. But they can't get rid of it completely. And in that case one USB cable would in fact sound better than another, having removed some of the noise would improve the entire signal chain.
But it's still incomplete, and most people have not spent $1000+ on their USB cable to get that benefit, so in most cases it's very incomplete. And that means dirty power is leaking into the entire signal chain and polluting everything all the way to the speakers.
In that case it gets to be a very frustrating process of elimination to find the cause of the problem. In my case it took six years of experimentation to get to the truth. |
Audiobb, I think in that scenario USB Disruptor would not be needed at all. The power would come from the DAC itself, just a 5 volt lead. And The DAC maker could leave the 5 volt pin off the USB connector on the DAC to guarantee dirty USB power can't leak into the DAC from the computer. I would bet that some DAC makers have figured out the problem and basically install a USB Disruptor type solution inside the DAC, which would be a great way to make a great sounding DAC, and then charge a big dollar amount because the sound is very different, and it's obvious to everyone that it simply sounds different. I'm serious, the sound with USB Disruptor is different.
In my opinion, and to my ears, the sound with USB Disruptor through my reference setup is the best sound I've produced in 25 years, and I think it's the best sound I've ever heard, on any system. It's not loud, I mean I could spend more to add 8 additional speaker drivers and more amps but that would only make it louder - it would provide no more clarity or detail.
I'm a total minimalist with the analog section of my system, having abandoned chunky preamps in favor of a single input passive preamp. The passive pre utilizes a state-of-the-art stepped attenuator, which is a volume control, but the signal passes through a single resistor only, and the volume control has 27 positions each with a single resistor for each level, so the total is 27 resistors. Bottom line on this, the signal is passing through what may be an absolute minimum in terms of volume, and for sure in terms of the preamp since there are no preamp circuits. It's hard to imagine a more pure circuit.
After the pre it goes to my custom Odyssey amp, then to my Von Schweikerts.
Again, it's hard for me to imagine a better sound - the Scanspeak drivers in the Von Schweikerts and the Sanken transistors in the Odyssey are found in some of the most expensive and best sounding audiophile gear- at any price. Buying another amp of similar quality, just more powerful, wouldn't help me do anything but go louder.
The point of this is that I didn't use USB Disruptor in this system until recently. And because of the difference I now know the cause of my digital woes to be dirty USB power.
Had USB Disruptor been invented years ago I may not have upgraded my Adcom amps or Mirage speakers, because the problem I was trying to solve, unbeknownst to me at the time, is caused by dirty USB power. The symptoms include shrill or sharp tones, a kind of graininess to the sound at times, and the silent spaces between notes are often lost. This becomes maddeningly apparent after using USB Disruptor, and I can't think of a single audiophile upgrade that accomplishes so much for so little cash. |
I have the Audiophilleo with PurePower and run the USB Disruptor there too. The difference is the same, dirty USB power infects that product too. I think the dirty power is composed of super high frequency noise that is able to travel on the surface of components. It's hard to clean up, so it's best just to disrupt it for good. |
FYI, USB Disruptor is $49 and made by me in USA. So we're already less expensive than the Doukmall cable, and it's from USA!
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Williewonka, the operating principles of USB Disruptor would suggest that the type of USB cable from the computer into the Disruptor would not matter, so long as it's a certified USB 2.0 cable. I tried testing it with a range of USB cables and I could not hear a difference. I have some empirical data that may help explain why it works. I've added that to my website: http://usbdisruptor.com/how-usb-disruptor-works/ I |
Jaybe, check out this part of my site for some answers to your questions:
http://usbdisruptor.com/how-usb-disruptor-works/
The Jitterbug may be filtering something out because I heard it on a very resolving system with USB Disruptor and it caused an unwanted ringing around one of the voices in Guinnevere by CSN. It was repeatable and was the Jitterbug. Maybe it doesn't play well with USB Disruptor, not sure, it really shouldn't matter though because USB Disruptor is really very, very, simple in terms of what it does, which is to disrupt the influence of the 5 volt power coming from the computer. We don't force the signal through any circuits, it's a very hands off approach in terms of the signal. That's why I said I don't like to knowingly filter anything when it comes to audio. |
Thanks Williewonka. If it sounded better without the extra cable, no matter what type of cable, then it could be a shielding problem. The connector would have to maintain the shielding and maybe it's not as good at doing that as a properly constructed USB cable. That may account for the sonic differences you heard, especially if it was better without the extra cables.
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Hi, would common mode (CM) noise show up on a scope? We did readings between using a certified USB 2.0 cable and the same cable with the USB Disruptor connected. The readings displayed the 5khz tones and we didn't see anything problematic. We may already be filtering it out, our solution is shielded. |
My engineering advisor says "The whole point of differential communications schemes is immunity to common-mode noise."
He also says you're right about ground loops, but that is "one of the most tangled webs you can weave in electrical engineering."
It's ironic because all of this back and forth is well and good but it's only half the story. If you don't listen then you can't really understand what it's doing.
In this case, the observations back the theory that unwanted noise from USB vBus affects the time domain. That in turn flattens the sound stage - makes sense that it would - and throws off spatial directions just enough to cause voices to bleed and shrill and harsh tones at times. |