USB Cable Ridge Street Audio/Synergistic Research

"Yes, USB cables do make a big difference... and that is not just a subjective opinion."

So what IS the objective difference? Certainly it can't be the "nature" of the one and zeroes, right? There's nothing different about a 1 coming through a cheap cable versus the same bit coming through an expensive one is there? If not that then is it that lesser cables screw-up the bits themselves? Or perhaps cheap cables let unwanted "stuff" through the wire to the DAC?

I'm not trying to be a troll here. I just bought a Benchmark DAC1 USB and am using the stock cable from a laptop while working on the rest of the "real" system (NAS, wired network, fanless dedicated audio PC). If I'll get better sound with a better cable I'll buy one but I also know that the placebo effect can be strong. Hence I would like to know at least the technical theory behind high-end USB cables.

I suppose in the end it will be a matter of having to try it to really "know". Still I'd like to try to understand the science behind it. I read the technical information on the Ridgestreet site but I couldn't glean why anything they claimed that their cable does affects the sonic product. Surely there's a way to describe effective benefits of a cable in terms of what it transmits (or does not transmit) to the DAC and why it's beneficial. In other words, if comparing cable A to cable B . . .

If bits are bits then
If the differences are bit-related then
- does A change fewer bit values than B?
- does A transmit with less data loss (null values) than B?
- does A transmit data with better timing than B?
- does A reduce a need to resend data over B?
- some other effect?
If the benefits are not bit-related then
- does A limit superfluous energy sent to the DAC better than B?
- some other effect?
If bits are not bits then
What about the nature of bits (not the value) affects the performance?

I'm not trying to dispute anyone's claim of sonic superiority of A over B. I would just like to know why . . . even just a rough idea . . . before spending hundreds of dollars on something that I don't remotely understand. Again, a previous poster stated that the superiority of some USB cables "is not just a subjective opinion." So what's the fact or theory behind them?