Will a quality USB cable make a difference....

Some people will remember some of my posts and it's no surprise I agree with Br3098. Any thing that a USB cable can do to "impede" bit flow is probably negligible compared hard timing realities in a PC or adapting the clock in the DAC for non asynch implementations. Interesting point about the connectors.

Also, I'm tired of people saying "trust your ears" or something to that ilk. Yes, if you like what you hear that all that matters. However, when you have to compare two things, you have to rely on your brain. And it's been proven that you can't trust your brain to accurately recall small differences in audio frequencies especially after a few seconds of time elapses.

larry

"So, OK it is plausible that different USB cables sound different from one another."

If there are any measurable "speed" differences in cables that would cause timing issues the difference would probably so small compared to any clocking on the host or re-clocking in an adaptive USB based DAC. With an synchronous DAC it wouldn't matter with all other things being equal (clocking into DAC chip, etc.).

And, then even if there is measurable jitter for whatever reason, how much jitter is needed for it to be audible using strict ABX testing? Not the single person swapping cables and thinking what they recall hearing minutes ago is accurate.

Thanks for going the extra little bit to help our economy (or your ecomony, they all need help). That's all you did unless you forgot to mention it was a blind test and you picked the correct cable 19 or 20 times out of 20 attempts to make it statistically valid. Sighted tests don't mean diddly. Do a little research on how what your brain can and can't do with audio frequencies, especially after a second or so of hearing something.