So nothing here explains the fantastical subjective differences people report between USB cables. Without this magnification, the differences even with lousy DACs like Schiit are literally in the noise. I have hugely magnified these differences. The Behringer performance is better than Schiit with any cable and shows no need for tweaking the USB cable.Ģ. Even a cheaper DAC like Behringer shows that such sensitivity is due to poor DAC design than anything to do with USB cables. It is sensitive to both USB power and data noise. Schiit Modi 2 that I have tested is horribly designed. Alas, two other factors conspire to make this non-news:ġ. Shorter cables provided improvements that were visible. So as usual, we can show measurements that bother the eye but not the ear.įor the first time anywhere, we have shown that we can change the analog output of a DAC by changing how we feed it in digital domain in USB. Here I am powering the Sonore microRendu with my high quality lab supply which helps a ton in cleaning its output. BTW, the Schiit normally does much better if fed with clean USB power. While differences still show, they are so, so down in level as to not ever be an audible concern. I then compared that to a very short, 6 inch or so generic USB cable: The first test was with a 28 gauge decent but generic quality 6-foot or so USB cable between the Sonore microRendu and the DAC in question. I figured if there is one DAC that can show differences in USB cables, this would be it. It seems to be highly sensitive to power and USB conditions. Of course I say that in jest as this is by far the worst DAC I have tested. See my review and measureents of the 1.4 version here: įor DAC, I used our perennial favorite, the Schiit Modi 2 DAC. This is a networked audio renderer and comes with improved USB implementation. I thought it would be good to add some data to the conversation.įor my testing, I used the Sonore microRendu as my source host. On the other side of the fence many believe there isn't or can't be any difference in USB cables ('they are all digital'). Aftermarket USB cables seem to be all the rage with people paying as much as $15,000 for a short run of it!!! Lots of subjective performance reports are out there but none back with any objective measurements that demonstrates any difference.

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