Cambridge Audio DACMagic Errrrrrrrrrrrr

[admin_exported]

DACMagic On Home Audition. SYSTEM: 5m USB from PC. Van Den Hul The Second RCA to My Denon AVR-4308 - Rear Speakers only used with the DAC Magic - Monitor Audio GS10s - QED XT350 Speaker Cable

The sound from my pc is truly astonishing with lossless files - very comparable to my reference system (costing many many times more) & most importantly a joy to listen too. Even MP3s are now listenable.

All the raving on the forums about the unit made me have to check the fuss. Glad I did. £200 Bargin I think

 

[idc]

Hi Vinny. Out of interest what USB cable have you used? A 5m run is quite a way.

 

[Anonymous]

DAC, Mac and Flac - its the future.

I use one of these - £2 - 5m USB Cable - and its works fine

 

[Anonymous]

I think its a Belkin one - not sure though. Surely a USB cable cannot affect the audio quality? I used to use a 15m USB cable for my printer. Never had a trouble

 

[Anonymous]

Indeed. WhatHifi did a post about 3 different levels of computer based systems. The top one being a Mac with Airport Express and a controller like an iPod touch/phone. Thinking of sorting myself out with something slick like that

 

[idc]

I have no idea if one USB cable sounds different from another! I was asking because of the length of run, as there appears to be a general agreement that longer cable runs do have impedance and increased RFI problems. I confess to buying a £27 USB cable on the principle that I dont want to have a cheap link in my set up, it has a ferrite core (as does everything else that I have connected to my PC that comes as standard, so it must have a use) and it has a thick sheathing which can be bent and it stays put, which helps with the run.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

Yep, it's the way forward.

As mentioned a few months ago, I never use my CD player now. It's Mac/DAC/AE/ALAC all the way or the Roksan turntable, when our 2 year old is asleep.

I just wish I could stream 24 bit downloads, that's the only drawback. Not that the old, steam powered Arcam CD player could handle those either, of course.

 

[chebby]

I have a John Lewis 'own brand' 5 metre USB 2.0 cable. It was £8 (reduced from £20) when I bought it.

The international body that compiled the standards for USB state that 5 metres is the recommended maximum so it should be fine.

http://www.usb.org/about/faq/ans5#q2

Belkin cable (even 5m) should be an excellent choice.

 

[Anonymous]

idc:I have no idea if one USB cable sounds different from another! I was asking because of the length of run, as there appears to be a general agreement that longer cable runs do have impedance and increased RFI problems. I confess to buying a £27 USB cable on the principle that I dont want to have a cheap link in my set up, it has a ferrite core (as does everything else that I have connected to my PC that comes as standard, so it must have a use) and it has a thick sheathing which can be bent and it stays put, which helps with the run.

Good point, I'm not sure how a USB works compared to a cat5 cable, but from my NAS to AV amp it has to be a good 30+ meters, and as far as I know it's standard cat5 and works fine.

 

[professorhat]

USB doesn't have the same range as Cat5 - USB maxes out around 5m (without an active extension which basically retransmits the signal allowing longer lengths). Cat5 is about 100m.

ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
USB doesn't have the same range as Cat5 - USB maxes out around 5m (without an active extension which basically retransmits the signal allowing longer lengths). Cat5 is about 100m.

ÿ

Thanks Professor hat,

Do you know what the differences are in the signal? As it seems that what's used for cat5 is much more efficient than usb or any other signal path I can think of.