Cardas Clear USB cable... anyone tried it?

Has anyone ever tried a Locus Design USB cable?

I had a Locus Design Axis usb cable, it was VERY good. It's pricey too, but to me it was worth it. I changed dacs to a firewire dac and no longer needed a usb cable or I would still have it.

Sorry to revive this thread, but has anyone had a chance to try this cable yet?

I just got an Ayre QB-9 and I'm trying to figure out which cable to try out, and so far it's between the Cardas, Transparent, and Ridge Street Audio Poiema/Alethias.

The only way a USB cable can make the music sound different is if it allows bits to be corrupted, i.e. cable doesn't meet spec. Serial transmission (serdes, 8b10b encoding)is a totally different world compared to S/PDIF. It's quite easy to see if a USB cable is "bad". Just connect a portable USB drive and copy files back and forth and verify the data is intact (checksums, zip file integrity, etc). If this type of data transmission allowed for bits to be flipped, we'd be having a real hard time posting here.

Jibbonacci... thanks for the revival! I'd be very interested in your reports,whatever your findings, on these cables. I have experience with the Poiema and the Alethias (which I think is quite impressive, and the Poiema is no slouch by any means), but none with the Cardas or the Transparent.

USB cabling does make a difference. It's just whether that difference is compatible with your system.

:) listening,

Ed