Chord USB SilverPlus

[Potts]

I know there's a lot of USB cable sceptics out there, but last week I picked up a Rega DAC from my local Seven Oaks and was recommended I try the Chord USB SilverPlus in addition. The guys in the shop said that they'd had a few customers try it who felt it it made an improvement... I can only agree with them. The sound was fuller, bass more cohesive, more detail and a more open top end... the music just sounded all together more enjoyable. It was only when I reverted back to my Belkin USB whilst the Chord was on order for a week that made realise the improvements it had given my system.

I had previously trialled a Wireworld Ultraviolet and thought it sounded terribly harsh and fatiguing which I suppose made me more open to trying a different cable. I just wondered whether anyone else had tried the Chord USB SilverPlus?

 

[toyota man]

I am soglad that you found cable the made a difference I have been thinking of getting a better cable for my laptop I have been using a usb cable that came with a digital camera I think. to link up my laptop to musical fidelity m6i which has a built in dac you have inspired me to take a punt on Chord silver plus I will post my findings :cheers: :cheers:

 

[Potts]

I am soglad that you found cable the made a difference I have been thinking of getting a better cable for my laptop I have been using a usb cable that came with a digital camera I think. to link up my laptop to musical fidelity m6i which has a built in dac you have inspired me to take a punt on Chord silver plus I will post my findings :cheers: :cheers:

I hope it does make a difference for you, toyota man.

I was initially a sceptic but having heard that the Wireworld cable I tried sounded worse than my Belkin, I felt that there must be a scope for a USB cable that sounds better... luckily this came in the form of the Chord. I look forward to your findings

 

[JonP01]

I recently bought this Chord cable and agree it is very good, if a tad thick sounding and lacking resolution compared to more expensive offerings. That said, I do much prefer it to my previous Wireworld Starlight Red and indeed even the Starlight Silver at least in terms of tonality and lack of listening fatigue. I find it interesting that I love the Wireworld cables in general and use them throughout my system but for some reason their USB cables don't work for me. I would like to see Chord bring out another USB cable higher up in their range (but nowhere near the insanely priced Sarum USB) as I feel a higher spec cable might adress the two shortcomings of the Silver Plus USB that I mentioned.

 

[MickyBlue]

I was scepticle that this cable would make any kind of difference but accidently its fixed a problem i put down to speaker placement.

I have had bass issues ever since i bought my KEF R500's and thought it was down to positioning, i have moved them all round the room trying different positions/toe ins/bungs etc, The only part of my system i had'nt upgraded was the usb cable (cheap belkin usb) as so many people said there was no difference therefore i left it alone, after moving a few things about i needed a longer cable and saw the chord usb silver plus on ebay for half price so i thought "why not", i received the cable and plugged it in, sat back and put TIDAL on, after a couple of minutes it dawned on me.... The bass problem had gone?????? surley not.... i skipped through more bass filled tracks and could'nt believe the difference, i no longer have a flabby bottom.

make of it what you will but this is no placebo effect it has genuinly tightend up the bass.

 

[cheeseboy]

make of it what you will but this is no placebo effect it has genuinly tightend up the bass.

serious question and not trying to start the usual cable debate, but how do you know it's not a placebo effect? You are aware that a placebo effect can cause changes in the brain? Therefore even though you do heara difference, it still could be a placebo...

 

[CnoEvil]

I am soglad that you found cable the made a difference I have been thinking of getting a better cable for my laptop I have been using a usb cable that came with a digital camera I think. to link up my laptop to musical fidelity m6i which has a built in dac you have inspired me to take a punt on Chord silver plus I will post my findings :cheers: :cheers:

If you are trying USB cables, you might like to add the one from Vetere to your list.

 

[iMark]

The funny thing is that you only get these claims when it comes to audio. Nobody claims that their pictures printed brighter because they upgraded the USB cable between their computer and their printer.

Personally I don't believe in any effect that cabling can have when it comes to transfering 1's and 0's from A to B. As long as the same number of bits arrive as the number that have been sent there can't be any audible or measurable difference.

In the not too distant analogue days I definetely could see the difference between scart cables. Better quality cable with better shielding definitely meant a better picture. With HDMI however shielding is not as important. As long as the bits arrive at your screen you should be fine.

So for analogue signals there can be an audible difference between cables. I'm not convinced however that more expensive cables are necessarily more neutral sounding. Personnally I want as little colouring as possible.

For digital signals I think that we can generalise that as long as all the bits arrive there can't be any difference between cables. My best hifi buy ever were 2 digital coax cables that I bought at a sale in John Lewis for 50p each.

 

[iceman16]

been using the Chord usb silver plus(laptop - dac) for years and never found any problems. Yes it's a very good quality cable.

 

[The_Lhc]

The funny thing is that you only get these claims when it comes to audio. Nobody claims that their pictures printed brighter because they upgraded the USB cable between their computer and their printer.

The only slight issue there is that USB comes in many implementations, it's the same cable but the transfer method for the data is not the same between a computer and a printer as it is when carrying audio, so you're not exactly comparing apples and apples.

 

[iMark]

The implementation of USB audio has just about nothing to do with the cables. If you use a cable that has the right connectors for the right implementation there shouldn't be any problem. My point still stands.

Spending money on expensive USB or HDMI cables is a complete waste of good placebo money. But of course you might prefer the design or colour of specific cable and the connectors might be of a sturdier design. But for transfering bits from A to B it doesn't make any difference.

 

[abacus]

USB & HDMI are Data cables NOT Audio (Or Video) Cables, therefore whether you spend £5 or £500 on one it will make absolutely NO difference to the sound, (Try a blind test and you will find it is an indisputable fact) so don’t waste your money.

Bill

 

[iMark]

Just found this quote on another forum about USB cables:

I have an expensive USB memory stick. The quality of the stored Word documents is far greater than when I held them on a cheap memory stick. Bigger words, nicer font. After all, you get what you pay for.

I don't mean to be rude but anyone that claims or thinks they can hear a difference in audio by using different USB or HDMI cables should go back to school and learn about elementary physics and the placebo effect.

 

[cheeseboy]

The only slight issue there is that USB comes in many implementations, it's the same cable but the transfer method for the data is not the same between a computer and a printer as it is when carrying audio, so you're not exactly comparing apples and apples.

USB cables never carry "audio". They only ever pass through data. Unless you've taken the connectors off and are using it as analogue interconnect or speaker cable, which lets be honest, nobody will do. By their very definition and design they are a digital data cable.

 

[tinkywinkydipsylalapo]

Unless you've taken the connectors off and are using it as analogue interconnect or speaker cable, which lets be honest, nobody will do.

Or improved the shielding and removed the 5V power line in order to reduce potential sources of interference?

 

[cheeseboy]

Unless you've taken the connectors off and are using it as analogue interconnect or speaker cable, which lets be honest, nobody will do.

Or improved the shielding and removed the 5V power line in order to reduce potential sources of interference?

aye, that's not a bad mod if your dac doesn't require a power source from the usb. although shielding is debatable as digital signals take quite a bit before there is actual signal loss, although I can understand why it might make some people feel better to not take the risk. Although worth noting that electrical interference on a digital signal usually will introduce an extra noise (ie a hum of somesuch), not just make it sound not as good as it were. Apologies, I fogrot how to English today

 

[The_Lhc]

The only slight issue there is that USB comes in many implementations, it's the same cable but the transfer method for the data is not the same between a computer and a printer as it is when carrying audio, so you're not exactly comparing apples and apples.

USB cables never carry "audio". They only ever pass through data. Unless you've taken the connectors off and are using it as analogue interconnect or speaker cable, which lets be honest, nobody will do. By their very definition and design they are a digital data cable.

The point, and it's purely theoretical admittedly (and hypothetical in my case, I don't use USB for audio at all), is that in an audio application Isochronous transfer is used, where there is no guarantee of delivery (because it's time-sensitive data) and packets could be dropped, whereas sending data to a printer uses bulk transfer where dropped packets WILL be resent, so the signal can't be anything but perfect. So as I said, you're not comparing like with like when you make the old "my prints looked much brighter with this cable" joke.

Whether any of that is noticable in the real world is an entirely different question and not one I was addressing.

 

[cheeseboy]

if there is any packet loss, you will hear dropouts though, not a "better" sound, and it's still transmitted as data. Hence the thing that in order to affect the audio one hears, something would have to alter that data, and as it is data, the cable would have to be smart (ie have some kind of digital processor in it) otherwise it just passes it through. This is reason why people like to talk about the magical colour enchancing usb cable for printers, as it's basically saying the same thing as the hifi usb cables are saying = ie here is a cable that claims to alter the data passing through it.

synch/asynch is more of a hardware thing and it's recommended that one uses an asynchronous Dac as that uses it's own clock to regulate.

 

[The_Lhc]

if there is any packet loss, you will hear dropouts though, not a "better" sound,

Like I said, that wasn't the point I was addressing, they don't use the same transfer protocol so there's no point to comparing them, it's a complete strawman argument and largely irrelevant to the question posed anyway. That's all I was saying.

 

[iMark]

No, the reason why people mention getting better and warmer pictures from their printer and better Word documents of their hard drive after upgrading their USB cable is to make the argument upgrading a USB cable to get better sound is as silly as getting a new USB cable to get better pictures from your printer. It's quite annoying that reputable companies prey on gullible consumers with their idiotically priced cables.

Anyone who thinks that a USB cable will have any influence on sound doesn't understand fundamental digital technology. No sound is carried over a USB cable, just data. Exactly like your computer doesn't send pictures or text to your printer. It sends data.

 

[The_Lhc]

Ok, once more, with feeling:

In an isochronous transfer (for audio data) packets CAN BE DROPPED (how hypothetical that may be).

In a bulk transfer (for printing) they CAN'T.

The comparison is pointless.

The cable in all of this is actually irrelevant. As I've now said more than enough times, I'm not making any claims about the cables, that's just your frothing fury making you read things that aren't there.

 

[cheeseboy]

Ok, once more, with feeling:

In an isochronous transfer (for audio data) packets CAN BE DROPPED (how hypothetical that may be).

In a bulk transfer (for printing) they CAN'T.

The comparison is pointless.

just out of interest, you agree that an audiophile usb cable is pointless then?

 

[iMark]

Packet loss in USB transfers can be caused by defective cables. But it doesn't matter whether that USB cable cost 1 or 5000 pounds.

So you do understand that cable quality or price is irrelevant in audio transfers over USB (as long as the cable isn't defective)?

 

[cheeseboy]

regardless of if you think the cables make a difference or not, this is the kind of bullpoo that really irks me. Taken from the chord website itself...

http://www.chord.co.uk/products/usb-and-digital-audio-interconnects/usb-silverplus/

"We use high quality conductors and the best shielding to create a cable that transfers the audio signal accurately and efficiently."

it's not a ****ing audio signal for gods sake, it's data. DATA. And people wonder why audiophile cable companies are not to be trusted when they can't even tell you what's being transmitted correctly.

 

[ellisdj]

Not read the thread because I already know what will be in it - mostly naysayers

These are 2 places to get a USB Cable that will smash most it not all others.

This one is the first

This one is the second - this one works best with JPlay Software