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

Hi Vvinc... this is my suggestion if you are interested in Ridge Street USB cables... call Robert at RSA... describe your system (particularly your digital front end as well as its playback software, your music preferences, and see what he has to say. In my experience, he is a very knowledgeable, candid, and honest person.

If I recall correctly, and I think I am accurate in this otherwise I wouldn't mention it, Robert has a trial period for customer satisfaction: (my understanding is that) you don't like the cable and you haven't let your dog chew on it, you get your money back. One note of caution, on my system Robert advised 100 hours of break-in/settling in, but that was very optimistic. My system with the Enopias took at least 175 hours (maybe more) to achieve its capabilities in a sustained and repeatable manner. Now that it has hundreds of hours on it, it is a remarkable performer, and I wouldn't consider selling it. I have his Alethias USB cables on two other systems which I purchased used on Audiogon and even with them it took considerable time. In fact, it's my belief that one sale took place because the seller didn't wait long enough for the cable to achieve its place in the system. One day, while playing it, everything snapped into focus and has stayed there.

So, bottom line, call Robert and discuss your system and listening habits with him. If he thinks his cables, whether Poiema, Alethias, or Enopias, will be or won't be a good fit, he'll say so.

As some sage said long ago, "the proof is in the pudding," so take a listen and decide for yourself (but remember my cautions about the settling in/break in period which can be quite extensive),

:) listening,

Ed

"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.

I've been reading about this, and im planning to make some tests to see if i really notice a big difference using expensive cables. There is a good thread at HF about this.

@Chatta... everything about cables is system dependent. Tell us your experience; I for one would like to know.

:) listening,

Ed

I had a chance to listen for quite some time to a dealers setup (he used me as a guinea pig) while switching between a cheapo, decent computer(gold plated connectors) and a high end - ish 125$ cable (all 3 foot) linking a iMac to a ayre qx9 dac, ayre amps, and very nice speakers (devore??, I forget). Player was ammrra with itunes. Dealer let me pick a music selection that I know well and set to looping the section and running the pause/cable swap every couple repetitions. he was very fast and seamless. I could not see what he did or even if he switched cables every time. Unless he lies (and I do not believe that at all) the cheapo to both the decent and fancy was a easily detectable difference. I could not tell the difference from decent to the fancy no matter what. spent at least an hour with this nonsense and I was able to call the cable upon testing between the good ones and the cheapo. For me on that system the high end was not worth the money but the fact that I could hear any differences at all was a surprise. Yet another thing I dont understand but acknowledge.