USB cable to DAC confusion over sound quality.

[ellisdj]

You can use linear battery low noise fanless atx

You can even use a phone battery charger such as an Anker e4 they are all much better than the 5v from a computer

The anker e4 is surprisingly good and puts out 3amp

 

[ellisdj]

I am not sure what you mean by check 5v usb - if you mean check ripple that will be very interesting

But let us know how you get on. With a cleaner power supply for the Explorer you might then hear a difference between the stock and furutech cables worth testing again

If the better power doesn't work apologies I have found its always improved the sound in every area I have used them

 

[Green Bow]

All except USB3 has limited current capabilities which are normally exceeded with the better quality DACs etc, hence the reason for a separate power supply. (If you look at quite a few portable HDD you will find they have 2 USB A plugs into 1 USB B plug thus doubling the current available.

A good DAC will also use asynchronous USB, meaning the DAC has full control over the signal.

The argument as to which type of power supply is best for audio has been going on for years, however in reality if a power supply is designed correctly for the job in hand, it should not affect the sound. (As always cost will enter into it)

Bill

Yeah the two USB points going to one for external HDDs in my experience was for 7200rpm disks. (They need more current.) Some 5400rpm disks occasionally need it.

@ellisdj

I do have some 5v adaptors so I could easliy salvage one into a PSU for a USB cable. However I would rather check first the 5V output of USB to see how accurate a power rail it is. I had an open ended USB cable somehwere and I might still have.

I think the USB ports are 500mA, whereas I think you suggested they were 1A. I might be wrong though. It's unlikely Meridian would run them underpowered as it would shorten lifespan, but you never know.

 

[Green Bow]

I have been wondering the audio quality cables make a change by making us listen in more relaxed way.

When I put the Furutech cable on I expect it to deal with any jitter and produce less errors. Thus I chill out a bit more when listening, and take in the music. Whereas when I switch to the stock USB cable I am more analytical.

I have an analogy which kind of explains what I mean, even though I guess some people may agree anyway. Originally when I got the Meridian Explorer, it didn't sound disimilar to my PC on-board audio card. (The PC on-board audio was surprisingly good with Grado headphons.) The ME needed running in, but I did not take that into consideration, and thought it little better than on-board audio. Anyway after many months I A-B the ME against the onboard audio, to find the ME clearly better.

Since then I have enjoyed the ME more. I am not in the mind that was quite and average DAC anymore. It was almost like I had a mental block on it when listening. Now I have heard that it is richer and fuller than the onboard audio, I hear those fuller richer qualities. Whereas before doing the recent A-B I thought the ME had improved only a little.

This is not placebo with the ME, believe me. I was initially dissappointed with the ME, and until I A-B it again, always was.

Having said all that I can't help wondering if the audio quality cable is slightly better. However that's the issue. I can't be sure, and not £38 sure.

 

[ellisdj]

again onboard and the ME limited by the power supply of the pc - I would guess its holding the ME back in that comparison

Get a home demo from Item Audio or Russ Andrews of an external PSU and check - then send back if no different

For me the better power supply it either gets fuller and richer - sign of reduced noise - Linear PSU particularly good for this

or cleaner and better organised, typical of battery psu - sign of reduced noise also - getting bothout of one is a winner but is normally from the more expensive power supplies such as a Bakoon BPS02 or Jcat battery supply - both same

Or you could DIY

Amazon Sell Anker E4 phone charging batteries, this is a great solution for the money - battery lasts days before charge is needed - then you need to knock up a dual cable to power the ME from the Anker and one to feed data from the pc into one usb connector = this would cost about £40 all in to do. You can screen the cables with cotton wool and aluminium foil if you want to try it. This is a very basic screen but readily available and cheap to try.

I would suggest getting Neotech AWG 18 ish OCC copper from HIFI Collective to make the power and data cable - then ebay for the diy usb connectors. WBT silver solder is easy to use and worth the few quid it costs

I was doing just this until recently - then I gave 2 of the Ankers with cables I had made DIY (much better screen than aluminium but costs more) to my cousin for his audio pc and his system has never sounded so good - compared to him using a very low noise fanless ATX Power supply. Goes to show.

 

[Green Bow]

As said I found no real change in my Meridian Explorer, when suing a audio quality USB cable. However as you said ellisdj someone else suggested powering the ME with clean power. I can't work out how to do that without hacking open my audio USB cable though.

Anyway I recently bought, (but have not yet used) a Chord Mojo. I have been following the Official Chord Mojo Thread on Head-Fi. There was recently someone posted an opinion that the Mojo with an audio-quality USB cable made a startling difference. The Mojo has it's own power.

I doubt I will hack open my audio USB cable so I think I will never know with the ME though.

 

[Vladimir]

I apologize if already mentioned, but what is being used as headphone amp for the Grado's?

 

[Green Bow]

At the time it was the Meridian Explorer (ME).

Now however with the Chord Mojo it has a different socket. I am now wondering about the QED Reference USB A to Micro B. £70 though and a lot to pay for a cable if it doesn't work.

Some on the Mojo thread say it does.

For me the Furutech Formula 2 did nothing for the ME.

 

[ellisdj]

This appears to be a very populer device

I could recommend a usb cable buts its pricier than £70. I made a usb cable for a friend recently for his system and it turned out really good. Not surprising the effort and parts I put in. Noone sells them like this.

 

[Green Bow]

Hey ellisdj, I think you were once suggesting powering the Meridian separately. I never worked out how to do that. It was not possible to access the power rails of the USB cable without hacking it open. I have seen some powered devices though that seem to split power and signal. However it will mean passing the signal through a USB device that is probably not specced to audio standard. Can't win.

 

[ellisdj]

Seperating the power and data lines inside the usb cable is pretty easy, however there are products that do this for you I am sure.

Factor in taking power from the USB bus of a laptop or pc etc is cartianly not configured for audio either

Item Audio sell these types products, they used to, they used to have a linear power supply that just plugged the usb into from memory, I had a home demo of one. Cant remember the name.

The Utpone Audio USB Regen is getting loads of positive opinions on the forums - I guess this does something very simialr.

However the Chord Mojo is powered off a battery so that will just charge and then playback off the grid I would expect.

In this instance the screening on the data line and seperation from the power line would be more my priority

 

[Vladimir]

You buy a powered USB hub. Then you add a small strip of electricians tape on the first pin on the USB cable between the PC and the hub. This will isolate the 5V rail coming from the PC. You then plug your DAC to the hub, which combines the power from the hub and the data rails coming from the PC. Next, to get clean power, you throw the phone charger that came with your hub in the trash and you use a 5V 2A linear regulated PSU.

I've done this and it's very easy. No cable splicing involved and it's reversable (just remove the bit of tape from the USB plug). You can also isolate the ground rail (last pin) the same way.

 

[Vladimir]

A cable is a passive component and the PSU is an active component. Think about it.

 

[Green Bow]

I have a four way USB hub. It has a 2A charger for the four sockets, at 0.5A each. I had not thought about another power adapter for it.

However all is not well.

There is a strange problem when attaching the Meridian Explorer (ME) to the hub. Simply, there is no power to the ME. The ME lights flash for a second but that is it. No music. No light to signify music sampling rate. The light on the USB hub shows as if there is nothing attached. (Ports with a USB device attached, flash.)

Secondly, the principle of the audio-quality USB cable is lost when using a USB hub. It means a cheap USB cable to the hub, and then audio quality out of the USB. You have cheap cable in the circuit. On top of that, I think quality is lost over connections (which the hub is,) anyway.

I think you can get hubs that can be attached to USB ports on pc. I think I saw one recently and it had just one USB out. It was powered externally. I think that could be the solution, but then the ME might not run on it. As it doesn't run on mine.

I think the only way would be hacking the audio-quality USB cable. Or feeding the ME independently. I haven't thought yet how to do either though.

I guess I am stuck, but no worries.

However I think I have read that, independent power on a cheap USB cable is better than only audio-USB cable.

 

[ID.]

I recently bought a new USB cable.

I could, of course immediately hear the differences - sounds less "digital", blacker background, better soundstage.

The question is, seeing as it's brand new, how long will it take to burn in? I suspect that the use of exotic/precious metals (platinum and rhodium plating and PCOCC copper) means that it will take even longer for the crystals to align and full burn in to manifest. Should I have had it cryogenically treated or gone for silver plated copper for higher speed data transmission?

 

[Green Bow]

Yeah someone usually writes one of those.

They usually don't seem to take into account how fractional changes in audio signals make a difference.

We can hear differences in audio at 1/20,000 of a second. In that same signal our ears send signals to the brain that identifies that phase of the sinusoidal wave.

That is why quality analogue cables work and are night and day better. Discrepancies in cheap cables cause different amplitudes of signal. E.g. mucking up directional info and losing soundstage size.

I have no idea if cheap USB cables affect signals. I know we use asynchronous USB devices for more accurate timing. Timing which is mean to be mucked up by cheap cables, and cheap clocks. If this is true, it makes sense that cheaply transmitted digital signals will be poorer.

Having said that, I have not heard it yet.

 

[cheeseboy]

I have no idea if cheap USB cables affect signals. I know we use asynchronous USB devices for more accurate timing. Timing which is mean to be mucked up by cheap cables, and cheap clocks. If this is true, it makes sense that cheaply transmitted digital signals will be poorer.

Having said that, I have not heard it yet.

yes, they will be poorer, but any degredation in a digital signal will result in drop outs, white noise etc, not a gradual loss of singal quality, or less bass etc.

The best example I think that most people can see for themselves is what happens in the difference between the old analogue tv, and digital tv signals. If the old analogue signal degraded, the picture went gradually etc. Now with digital, if you get a blip, you get massive blocks, screen freezes, squelching noises etc as the signal is lost.

 

[ellisdj]

I have a four way USB hub. It has a 2A charger for the four sockets, at 0.5A each. I had not thought about another power adapter for it.

However all is not well.

There is a strange problem when attaching the Meridian Explorer (ME) to the hub. Simply, there is no power to the ME. The ME lights flash for a second but that is it. No music. No light to signify music sampling rate. The light on the USB hub shows as if there is nothing attached. (Ports with a USB device attached, flash.)

Secondly, the principle of the audio-quality USB cable is lost when using a USB hub. It means a cheap USB cable to the hub, and then audio quality out of the USB. You have cheap cable in the circuit. On top of that, I think quality is lost over connections (which the hub is,) anyway.

I think you can get hubs that can be attached to USB ports on pc. I think I saw one recently and it had just one USB out. It was powered externally. I think that could be the solution, but then the ME might not run on it. As it doesn't run on mine.

I think the only way would be hacking the audio-quality USB cable. Or feeding the ME independently. I haven't thought yet how to do either though.

I guess I am stuck, but no worries.

However I think I have read that, independent power on a cheap USB cable is better than only audio-USB cable.

Your in the wrong forum for advice on these matters - most of the people on here are set in their ways of thinking which is fine, you will get more sarcasm than assistance

Here is a much better source for like minded individuals who have helped me learn more than I ever have from this forum

To me the people that think digital is digital are the audiofiles helping to bring back the resurgence in vinyl. I think these people are fed up with digital poor sound quality and are looking for a cheap fix elsewhere. I dont think digital sounds poor far from it - but in my eyes it takes the same amount of atttention to details as analogue does.

I made a USB Cable for a pal recently and we tested against the stock one he was using and it was night and day different not even remotely close. Thats how it is you can take my word for it or not, I dont care. I plan to make myself a very eloborate one soon

His printer also improved from my cable as well before that old chestnut comes out

 

[Green Bow]

I think that's a very relevant argument. However do odd blips in data cause huge drop outs. As far as I am aware thay don't. A few bits in error might cause a few pixels to be the wrong colour. A large drop in signal causes dropout and blocky pictures.

On my digital radio, it is when signal strength or signal quality get very low, that it drops out.

Small amounts of error in video probably don't do much. We only need 24 frames per second. In audio we need to detect up to about 16,000 times per second. Meaning a sound signal of 16KHz.

OK I know there are no instruments that play that high. However it is the harmonics of a sound that make its timrbe unique. That is what a trumpet playing a note A sounds different than a piano playing the same note. It is the amplitude of the harmonics.

If you mess with harmonics, then instruments don't sound right. Meaning if you mess with a few bits of data, or slew the timing.

 

[Vladimir]

Every good scam is based on the buyers ignorance on the technology used. You can feed them literally any pseudo-science BS you made up while washing your car. Fun example here. 🙂 It especially works with people suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Ah, life. Another day in the savannah.

 

[cheeseboy]

However do odd blips in data cause huge drop outs.

it depends if there is any error correction built in to whatever transport mechanism is being used. No error correction and even 1 bit of loss will cause drop out. However, a lot of things now include error correction, buffering, parity etc in order to make sure that if there are losses of data they can either be reconstructed/retransmitted etc before you would notice it.

 

[Green Bow]

I honestly don't know with the USB cables and if some a re better. No idea. I did say and keep saying, I did not hear a change when I bought a supposed adio-quality USB cable. I was listening to music on Media Go and in Direct Sound. However I have since moved to JRiver and WASAPI which is better. Therefor I might have a better playing field to hear any changes. Not really done much A-B testing yet.

However what I said about timbre and harmonics is true. As is what I said about our ears detect even the most microscopic audio changes. I mean when we are young we can hear up to 20KHz. 20,000 pusles per second, and determine the phase of the audio wave.

To mix it up even more for me, I am using the Chord Mojo. It apprently uses iso-asynchronous clocking. Meaning it re-clocks the incoming signal. Therefor you wouldn't get timing errors. However some users say that getting the QED Reference USB a to B Micro, was an upgrade. As big an upgrade as upgrading to the Mojo.

I have no idea. I am personally freaked out about spending £70 on a USB cable full stop. Secondly I tried it once already with the Meridian Explorer and I heard no change. However I feel the Chord Mojo and SR225e should sound better. Maybe I have too higher expectations of those headphones. I mean the 225 series never got more than four stars in reviews. While the series' of the SR60, SR80, SR125, and SR325, always scored five stars in reviews. (NB Long story why I ended up with the SR225e. I got a good price too.)

 

[MajorFubar]

It's very obvious that a poor quality digital cable will affect the sound: you could get dropouts, stutter, noise and error messages on the sending or receiving device. Among other things. But until the penny drops and you properly 'get' that no digital cable can ever give you better bass, clearer highs, deeper soundstage, better instrument separation and all the other subjective qualities associated with changes in the analogue domain, you're at the mercy of all the con-merchants selling you such lies, including sorry to say, What HiFi themselves.

But the problem with internet forums is, while I'm giving you proper factual advice, someone else is just as able to give you opposing misguided advice, and both points of view are inherrently given the same level of credence in internet-land, leaving you sat there scratching your head wondering who to believe.

All I can advise to help you decide who's obviously telling you the truth is do your own research. But don't 'research' just by reading HiFi forums.

 

[ellisdj]

The problem is its all just words - one person cannot sit the other down and show them what they are saying.

So its trust what you want as it always is - but if you want cerain info on the subject this is not the place to get it

 

[Vladimir]

Usually the biggest suckers are the tweakers. We are always ready to try new things, our neurotic nature constantly pushes us to fiddle with something, improve it even if it doesn't need improving, and our technical knowledge is incomplete. And we know that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.