Which USB Cable best for my new USB DAC


Just bought an AUDIO ALCHEMY DDP-1 USB DAC for my computer. It’s due to be delivered on Monday and I don’t have a USB cable for it. I’ve never bought a USB cable for audio before so I thought I’d ask if anyone has particular experience buying USB cables for this particular product. Or if not this particular product, then which audio USB do you like.  I listen to classical music and opera and have a fairly good stereo set up for my computer, a Musical Fidelity A3cr Preamp, Adcom Amp and Spendor S3/5 Monitor Speakers.  It’s all quite musical and hopefully the Audio Alchemy will fit in nicely.

This article has given me some ideas, but it’d be nice to have some second and third and more opinions.

http://passionforsound.lachlanfennen.com/massive-usb-comparison-test/

128x128echolane

Showing 2 responses by jim204

Hi there , I dont know anything about your Audio Alchemy as I use a modifed Oppo Sonica Dac and the cable I use is the Telurium Q Ultra Silver cable. I listen to classical music also and find this cable once burned in just the ticket. It is not cheap , over here in the UK it cost £450 but I think it is well worth it. To burn in I just put it on a spare laptop and connected to an old dac and played BBC Radio 3 for a fortnight. After that I put it on my main rig and listened and it really was superb. The low basses in Mahler's Symphony No 2 had a growl to them I hadn't heard before and as I went through more of my music files I had similar experiencies. The treble is the last thing to settle down seeing as it is silver instead of copper I experienced from day to day that it would sound wonderful one day and brash and aggresive the next day. The bad days get fewer and fewer as time goes on.
Hi echolane,I'm sure you find this all daunting but once through the initial process it will become easier. I notice one poster was having a dig about us recommending more expensive cables and saying for you to get a cheap one first. I'm afraid I find this a bit of a false economy as if you ever want to resell it you will only get peanuts for it. I tend to get a really good cable first and the chances of wanting to change it later are very small plus I don't see why I should break in a cable for someone else to get the benefits. Jitter was also mentioned and there are many ways of fighting that little chestnut some very expensive and some not so. The one I would recommend is a program called Fideliser Plus, what it does is shut off lots of windows programs that actually contribute a lot of jitter thereby taking an imense load off the processor and forcing the processor to just use one core on audio based programs. It works a treat and is super value for money. I find as we get older we get more and more afraid of technology and we shay away from it. I have just built a new PC for my friend and set it up for him and he has taken it up like a duck to water and he is 72 so it can be done. Good luck in your quest and if you need any help at anytime just post it up and I shall do my best to help.Jim.