The Absolute Sound "review" of USB cable reads suspiciously like a press releaste

Nothing succeeds like success and failure’s no success at all.

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

In that case, if you’re pleased, I’m pleased. 🙄

“Every serious, well-known AV organization will tell you...”

Blah, blah, blah, blah......🤗

Isn’t slew rate a function of the amplifier? Not the conductor. The advantage of silver is that the resistance is lower. Maybe someone should come up with copper-plated silver wire. 😬

If you’re referring to the speed of the signal there is virtually no difference through copper or silver. In both cases it’s near lightspeed. 

For very high frequency applications like USB cables wouldn’t pure silver strands or silver plated copper strands be best, given that the signals travel very close to the surface of the conductors? Controlling the USB cables for directionality - as Audioquest does - also seems like a splendid idea. 🤗 I also like their “shield the shield” idea.

I’m a proud owner of Audioquest Carbon HDMI cables, which employ similar concepts. See link below for Audioquest web page for Carbon USB cable description,

https://www.audioquest.com/cables/digital-cables/usb-a-to-b/carbon

wynpalmer
Yes, many CDs are just dross, while a few are quite magical.

>>>>I can certainly understand why you would believe that but it’s not because the CDs per sec are dross. It’s because the playback system can not retrieve the data completely or accurately. It’s not even close. One’s hear is not particularly sensitive to various kinds of distortion present on almost all CDs when they are played back on home systems. But almost any yahoo with ears can hear the LACK of those distortions when they are removed. 

tom32801
Another thing that baffles me is HDMI cables. I don’t
know why, but I see slight differences with HDMI cables
on both my Pioneer Kuro TV and my computer monitor.

>>>>>>There it is! I must have ESP. 😳

The word shimmer means different things to different people. It’s like the word soundstage or air. If only you could hear what I hear with my ears. 

Please don’t misinterpret what I said. I didn’t say you personally were guilty of obscuring the issues. I was speaking generally.

rollintubes63 posts06-28-2019 11:20am@clearthink
@wynpalmer4 is simply explaining in technical terms that most trained people use, but will be foreign to the lay person.

Technical jargon can also be useful in obscuring the issues. It’s also an Appeal to Authority to the extent that because someone has technical knowledge it doesn’t mean they automatically win all or even any technical arguments. Two technically competent individuals may have entirely different views on a given issue, for example.

yping
My Cd’s generally sound great (as do my friends CD systems) not unnatural, bleached, tinny, bloated, congealed, two dimensional, and dull. I enjoy very much listening to CD’s.

>>>I’m happy to hear that but mostly because I predicted most audiophiles will say their system sounds fabulous. The real question is, would I 👁 say your system sounds fabulous?

wynpalmer44
Again, the fact that the input sequence is not perfectly timed is not relevant providing the data recovery circuitry/algorithms are able to cope with the imperfections. The use of data corrections (CRCs etc) can ensure bit perfect output sequence results. The use of quality retiming can ensure extremely low jitter prior to the conversion (or indeed during the conversion) to analog.

>>>>As I’ve pointed out a number of times, the correction circuits and the laser servo system are constantly trying to keep up (with the fluttering and flopping disc and the scattered laser light). In fact, they can not (rpt not) keep up. But whaddya want for nothing? This stuff (Redbook) was developed 40 years ago, for crying out loud. The industry is waaaay behind the power curve. It is what it is. Ever wonder why your CDs sound so unnatural, bleached, tinny, bloated, congealed, two dimensional, and dull?

Do SACDs have these issues? Do Blu Ray discs have the same issues? You betcha! 🤗

I almost forgot! The same 1s and 0s argument is frequently used in similar debates regarding HDMI cables, both generally speaking and in particular why control of directionality for HDMI cables is important, as Audioquest will attest. Hey! That rhymes! 🤗

“There’s plenty of room for the introduction of timing errors/jitter in that process even if the result is ultimately bit perfect.

“Ideally the DAC will retime the input data to restore a pristine, low jitter, bit perfect, data sequence for conversion to analog.”

>>>In my view the damage is done immediately and irrevocably as soon as the laser reads the data. The primary reasons why the CD playback process is imperfect is due to scattered laser light getting into the detector and vibration of the CD player and CD itself. The nanoscale geometry involved - laser beam width, pit depth distance from laser to the CD metal layer - makes the job of the servo mechanism, especially with all the vibration that is occurring, impossible. You get what you get.

The USB cable argument is probably more similar to the digital cable argument. Or so it would appear.

Actually it’s the same argument. The CD argument is that digital data encoded on the CD cannot be changed and that laser servo mechanism + error correction together ensure that the 1s and 0s maintain their integrity all the way to the DAC. It’s called the 1s and 0s argument. It’s the same argument used to “prove” that there’s no difference among digital cables, that 1s and 0s are being transmitted by the cable so aren’t affected by rf or vibration like analog signals are.

Hey, look here, another 1s and 0s argument! 🤗 We got our own 1s and 0s argument going over on the CD thread right now. “Theoretical question about how CDs work.” Experts urgently needed to straighten us out! The 1s and 0s argument is used to prove that CD really do produce perfect sound forever. We had a similar thread regarding digital cables recently. Yup, same 1s and 0s argument.