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W and M Interconnects

Rarely do I feel compelled to say anything about products but purchasing these prompted me to let you guys know about W&M based in the U.K. First let me start by saying that you should not feel indifferent to my remarks here because I have no previous feedback. I have no feedback because I used to be a dealer and until recently I never really had a reason to purchase anything outside of the business. I have been a member for several years, logging on whenever I had free time. Now that I am in the market for some things there of course is no place to find better replacement equipment than Audiogon in my opinion. Having said this I must say that these are very fine interconnects. The quality and workmanship is some of the finest I have seen on any cable costing less than $1000 and better than many costing much more. I have not had the chance to hook them up yet but I can't wait to do so. For now, all I can hope for is that they sound as beautiful as they look... I have no worries that this will be the case either! The guys over at W&M know their stuff, always respond to emails in a timely manner (you will be greeted by a lot of “hi mates”, “cheers” and such with a lovely British demeanor that adds a sense of class and enthusiasm to the communications process) and are dedicated to quality and workmanship. Give em a try; I think you will be pleased. I can't wait to hear how they sound but I am currently faced with the dilemma of trying to decide if I should actually hook them up or just display them for all to see :-) If you are one of those people that leaves work early on the day your new cables are to arrive because you can’t stand the suspense any longer; you won’t be disappointed that you upset your boss when you open the extremely well packaged product.
Cheers

P.S. I am going to try and post this as a review under the cables section as well.
bryandaws

Showing 3 responses by seandtaylor99

seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
"Even the worst Wal-Mart Special is better than most computer drives due to interference from other components and feedback from power supplies, fans, computer monitors and the like."

What complete nonsense. A computer is capable of reading hundreds of megabytes of data from a CD-ROM with not a single bit error, yet it cannot read a music CD ?

Also, since USB is a packetized protocol, a USB DAC must perform buffering and reclocking of the data before presenting it to the DAC, and so if the USB DAC master clock is of sufficient quality jitter is almost entirely removed.

Technically a USB DAC is capable of exactly the same performance as any one or two-box CD player.
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
"I am not going to even attempt to argue with Seandtaylor99 because unless he has a degree in electrical engineering focusing on computers and electronics his remarks have no merit whatsoever."

Actually I do. I have a EE degree and I write embedded software for internet protocols, cellular modems and GPS tracking. But I don't want to argue. If you can show that what I've written is untrue then go ahead. I'm no expert on USB but I know it's a high speed packetized protocol, and, as such will require buffering and reclocking before feeding a DAC.
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
"I find it hard to believe that you have an EE degree and you are designing software protocols for computer chips. It does not make since to me."

Then you obviously have no experience in embedded software. Embedded software engineers tend to come from either an EE background or computer science. Embedded software is actually a mix of EE and computer science. The best embedded software team will comprise members with EE degrees and members with computer science degrees.

The power transfer of USB is, as Herman points out, irrelevant. The USB power is transferred on a separate pin, carrying 5vDC. I would not expect any quality USB dac to use this power supply, partly because it is polluted with noise, and partly because it can only supply a couple of watts, which is insufficient. I suspect that it is left open circuit (not connected) on most all USB DACs, and that the DAC has its own separate power supply.

The high speed packetized nature is COMPLETELY RELEVANT, because it means that a USB DAC MUST buffer and reclock the data stream to the DAC, unlike an SPDIF based DAC which can attempt to regenerate its DAC clock from the SPDIF datastream. We all know that using SPDIF for the DAC master clock makes the DAC subject to the jitter in the transport, and is generally regarded as an outdated design. Since USB must reclock this weakness is removed.

So the computer can read data with zero errors, USB will transfer with zero errors, and the data is buffered and reclocked before being presented to the DAC chips ... it sounds like a formula for excellent digital sound. Of course it can be ruined in the execution, but then so can any one box or two box CD player.
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