AudioCircle
Audio/Video Gear and Systems => Critic's Circle (Equipment Reviews) => Cable Reviews => Topic started by: trianglezerius on 3 Mar 2010, 10:45 pm
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I've had the Essential USB cable for a few days now. I let in burn in for 40 hours straight before doing any critical listening. I've been using a Cryoparts USB cable and was saving up for another more expensive USB cable before I learned about this cable. With the Cryoparts as a measuring stick, there is really no comparison which was better between it and the Essential. There are improvements all over the place! Dynamics and attacks are easier to hear and every piece of music I auditioned seemed to flow better with greater air. The Essential always had a greater sense of space and smoother highs. Musical sustain and decay were greater and more analog sounding. It reminds me of the sound I used to get from my prior turntable set-up. So, after all these findings I'm going ahead and buying the Essential. It's a definite keeper!
Tom
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Sounds like a great cable, congrats to Eric and crew.
Just so the record is clear, you have the older CryoParts USB cable, the one I discontinued about a month ago, not my newest cable.
Peace,
Lee
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Tom, what's the pricetag on the Essential Cable? It would be nice to know from a price point where the comparisons should start. Thanks and enjoy. :thumb:
Cheers,
Robin
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It's on the website - 295 or 195 if you purchase the DAC.
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It's on the website - 295 or 195 if you purchase the DAC.
Thanks Matty. :thumb: If it's one thing I've found in my comparisons, the quality of a USB cable is fairly compatible with it's price point. At nearly $300, the Essential in not a cheap USB cable so I would suspect that it's performance should very very good when compared to a $60 -$100 USB cable. I hope to demo one in the near future as much as I do the db Audio Lab DAC. Making comparisons is the path to enlightenment for each of us. That's what makes the NY Audio RAVE gatherings (or any audio gathering) so fruitful for everyone who can participate. :D
Cheers,
Robin
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Hi Robin,
The price of our Essential USB Cable is $195 when bundled with a Tranquility DAC purchase and for our current Tranquility DAC owners. The Essential USB cable is also sold separately for $295. These are entry level prices but we will try to hold the Essential cable at these levels for at least a few months. Although we are currently priced on the low end of what many audiophiles consider "statement level USB cables", we don't hold back on telling audiophiles to compare us directly to the most expensive USB Cables available :wink:
BTW: I must give Lee at CryoParts serious accolades for bringing a very solid USB cable to market at his product's price point. Extreme solid value for sure. And just as Lee pointed out, he has now revised his USB cable too. :thumb:
Cheers,
Eric - db Audio Labs
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That is a great price point, Eric! Best wishes on the new release! :thumb:
Peace,
Lee
Hi Robin,
The price of our Essential USB Cable is $195 when bundled with a Tranquility DAC purchase and for our current Tranquility DAC owners. The Essential USB cable is also sold separately for $295. These are entry level prices but we will try to hold the Essential cable at these levels for at least a few months. Although we are currently priced on the low end of what many audiophiles consider "statement level USB cables", we don't hold back on telling audiophiles to compare us directly to the most expensive USB Cables available :wink:
BTW: I must give Lee at CryoParts serious accolades for bringing a very solid USB cable to market at his product's price point. Extreme solid value for sure. And just as Lee pointed out, he has now revised his USB cable too. :thumb:
Cheers,
Eric - db Audio Labs
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Please explain to me how a $300 usb cable carries 1s and 0s any better than a $3 one. either the bits make it there and are timed correctly or they aren't, it's a digital signal.
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I think you answered your own question - 'the bits are timed together or they are not'. Audio is not like sending a file across a USB cable where what ends up at the other end is an identical copy.
As a simple analogy, consider streaming video. When you download a video file, at the IP level the 1s and 0s may arrive in different intervals, even in different orders. TCP sits on top of that and makes it magically appear to be all coming in the right order and -eventually- you have a perfect copy on your hard drive.
But stream it, over TCP/IP, and due to the fact that you need your video NOW, there may not be time to get all your 1s and 0s before you need to display the next frame. You will see some kind of hiccup. It's still a digital signal, but timing does matter!
Streaming audio over USB - unless you are employing buffering of the audio stream the timing of the 1s and 0s is essential to how the output sounds, and this is why USB cables matter. I hope that makes sense.
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Streaming audio over USB - unless you are employing buffering of the audio stream the timing of the 1s and 0s is essential to how the output sounds, and this is why USB cables matter. I hope that makes sense.
This sounds like the same sort of story people always told about SPDIF digital cables and the like. But I thought USB should have introduced some advantages - like the ability to introduce error correction, or make use of the sort of buffering to which you referred. Isn't that what "asynchronous USB" is all about?
If I've got it all wrong, it raises the question of why buffering the audio stream isn't a standard element of USB devices? I would have imagined that it would be pretty simple to implement. But then, I have much more imagination than I have insight into implementing electronic or digital transmission ideas.
Another way to interpret my comment is this: if USB audio products are designed properly, is it possible to make the USB cable irrelevant?
Chad
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Careful, folks... this is a cable review thread, so let's please keep that focus.
Feel free to try The Lab (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=20.0) or The Path of Least Resistance (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=166.0) if you want to discuss general cable topics and theory. (And I'd strongly recommend searching the Empirical Audio (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=40.0) circle for technical details of the importance of timing (jitter) to USB signals and methods of addressing it.)
Thanks!
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Careful, folks... this is a cable review thread, so let's please keep that focus.
Feel free to try The Lab (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=20.0) or The Path of Least Resistance (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=166.0) if you want to discuss general cable topics and theory. (And I'd strongly recommend searching the Empirical Audio (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=40.0) circle for technical details of the importance of timing (jitter) to USB signals and methods of addressing it.)
Thanks!
Sorry!
Chad
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No worries!
Just trying to be a little proactive, since past experience with cable discussions have just left us a little sensitive for some reason, that's all! :)
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The dB Essential Cable sounds really good in my system. Nosed out the Cardas USB cable I was using. The Essential Cable added a level of spatial detail that was really nice.
For the price though the Cardas is really good, and bested several other entry level cables in my system. The Essential is better in my system though. Still very pleased with the Tranquility DAC and now the matching cable.
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I've been testing the Essential USB cable which immediately struck me as an improvement over my current Ridge Street Aletheis. I was intending to keep the dB cable but then came across one of Wireworld's new usb cables that my local audio shop was selling with their Wavelength dacs. I brought the current top of the line ($100) cable home and was stunned. A great cable.
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I've been testing the Essential USB cable which immediately struck me as an improvement over my current Ridge Street Aletheis. I was intending to keep the dB cable but then came across one of Wireworld's new usb cables that my local audio shop was selling with their Wavelength dacs. I brought the current top of the line ($100) cable home and was stunned. A great cable.
Hi Truant,
What system did use?
Tom
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MacBook Pro - dB Tranquility dac - LFD Zero integrated - Vandersteen 1C loudspeakers. My current cables are Volex PCs, Crimson R.M. Music-Link ICs and speaker cables, and the Wireworld Starlight usb. Since getting the dac last fall I've started to experiment again with cables to hopefully find the right balance and synergy. As with all cables I've purchased over the years I've been struck with how usb cables influence my system's sound. I think it's difficult to recommend cables since there are so many variables and so much is system dependent. When I picked up the WW cable from my favorite local shop which had just started selling Wavelength dacs that week I didn't expect to keep it but since I was told that Gordon (I hope I have his name right) of Wavelength recommends the WW cords with his dacs I was curious. When I bought my Tranquility one of my other considerations was the Brick.
The first thing that struck me once I hooked up the WW cable was that music suddenly had more swing. More verve. And, I think the WW cable allows my system to sound less digital and more resolving. I admit that I did not have the Essential usb very long and that it was likely not broken in during my time with it and I have not had the WW cable much more than a week so I am not comparing the two and saying one is better than the other. It has been a very small window of experience with the two cables and I determined to keep the WW based on that experience. I wanted to mention this because, who knows, perhaps the WW cables have a unique synergy with the dB dac.
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In general, I think the WW StarLight is one of the best bang-for-the-bucks USB cables anywhere and in some pretty rare company. I used one with my Cosecant and it was a big improvement over the UltraViolet and other usb cables I tried before that.
-- Jim
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Not to offend any one but this doesn't add up at an engineering level for me. The USB protocol is packet based with CRC error checking and has the ability to retry and/or drop bad packets. Also at a physical level there is an 8b/10 encoding encoding to average the 1s and 0s per eight bits which adds even more error checking. The USB DAC also has to buffer up the data and regenerate the PCM clock, as the USB clock is entirely different then the clock used for for audio. (i.e. MHz vs KHz) Since the USB bus is so much faster than SPDIF it will only fill up a buffer in the USB DAC. If the buffer is shallow and the USB cable is poor quality then the buffer will underflow and you won't here sound until it recovers. Technically there is no way the USB cable can improve the sound quality here. This is also like HDMI, but they go to another extreme step of encrypting the data with a different encryption key every 24-bits (or pixel), but the DAC nor the buffer knows the data is coming from a USB port or an HDMI port.
I don't intend to be rude or cause a ruckus but as a EE this annoys me and I would rather see folks spend money on a better DAC or more tunes. Perhaps if a USB Software engineer would say that most USB DACs disable the CRC checking then I could see that a properly shielded cable would cause a different (8b/10b would still catch most issues), but I would still argue to get a better DAC that does properly do the CRC checking.
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Perhaps you need to read this from the dB Audio Labs site:
"How is The Essential USB Cable sonically superior from other USB cable choices? It offers newfound improvements in harmonic decay, soundstaging and low level detail extraction. Soundstage width, depth and focus are taken to new levels. A newfound high frequency accuracy that allows for a better sense of liquidity and palpability. Instruments and singers just sound more real. Music is portrayed within the sound field like never before. In a nutshell, you haven’t experienced everything from the Tranquility DAC until you hear it coupled with The Essential USB Cable."
And here is why:
-Proprietary shielding geometry for the voltage and data conductors
-True 100% EMI and RF shielding applied to the data transmission pathways
-Transmission line theory optimized with extreme care to wave propagation
-Special non-magnetic dampening materials on ends to control micro-voltage issues
-Consistent conductor spacing that is not typical of hand made designs
-Specially treated unstressed conductors and grounding pathways
-Conductors and shielding terminated with special silver solder
Steve
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I'm an EE as well, and I'd suggest just closing the theory books and listen. On any capable dac, even some really inexpensive ones it shouldn't be too hard to tell the difference.
When I tried the Starlight over the usb on my async cosecant, I wasn't expecting any difference but it was pretty obvious from the first notes and just got better after that.
Sorry, no, I have no explanation for this, but even inexperienced listeners have heard the difference in my system when they had no idea what, if anything had been changed.
-- Jim
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Perhaps you need to read this from the dB Audio Labs site:
"How is The Essential USB Cable sonically superior from other USB cable choices? It offers newfound improvements in harmonic decay, soundstaging and low level detail extraction. Soundstage width, depth and focus are taken to new levels. A newfound high frequency accuracy that allows for a better sense of liquidity and palpability. Instruments and singers just sound more real. Music is portrayed within the sound field like never before. In a nutshell, you haven’t experienced everything from the Tranquility DAC until you hear it coupled with The Essential USB Cable."
And here is why:
-Proprietary shielding geometry for the voltage and data conductors
-True 100% EMI and RF shielding applied to the data transmission pathways
-Transmission line theory optimized with extreme care to wave propagation
-Special non-magnetic dampening materials on ends to control micro-voltage issues
-Consistent conductor spacing that is not typical of hand made designs
-Specially treated unstressed conductors and grounding pathways
-Conductors and shielding terminated with special silver solder
Steve
Yeah, i find their website contradicting check out the USB section under "tech talk" (for some reason you can't copy and paste it):
http://www.dbaudiolabs.com/ (http://www.dbaudiolabs.com/)
or oddly here: http://web.me.com/ehider/db_audio_labs_website_backup/Tech_Talk.html (http://web.me.com/ehider/db_audio_labs_website_backup/Tech_Talk.html)
It correctly states that the USB interface won't add jitter to signal, so all of the "extra" RF features just make for a solid connection, but won't make the digital data any better. Again the data either arrives or it doesn't, a USB cable can't add any "coloration" to the sound. Just the DAC itself and the output stage really will do that.
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I reposted this here in case people missed the links to comprehensive information on USB audio data transfer posted in the
The Path of Least Resistance Circle.
It appears that USB audio transmission is a more complicated subject than many believe. A USB connection may not add jitter but it is not free from the spectre of distortion of the analogue audio signal.
Here are links to more information on the subject. The first link is to excerpts from an article discussing the pitfalls of isochronous data transmission and the second link is for the complete article.
This article was written by an engineer in the BurrBrown group at TI who developed the 2700 series of USB codecs.
An explanation for dealing with the missing packets of data is contained in the article.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/wavelength2/brick_2.html
http://www.planetanalog.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=12801995
Scotty
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I've been wondering about this cable. Thanks for the solid review!
Yeah, i find their website contradicting check out the USB section under "tech talk" (for some reason you can't copy and paste it):
http://www.dbaudiolabs.com/ (http://www.dbaudiolabs.com/)
or oddly here: http://web.me.com/ehider/db_audio_labs_website_backup/Tech_Talk.html (http://web.me.com/ehider/db_audio_labs_website_backup/Tech_Talk.html)
It correctly states that the USB interface won't add jitter to signal, so all of the "extra" RF features just make for a solid connection, but won't make the digital data any better. Again the data either arrives or it doesn't, a USB cable can't add any "coloration" to the sound. Just the DAC itself and the output stage really will do that.
Aren't you forgetting that the "dumb data" connection of "simply 1's and 0's" is connected to an extremely noisy source via the voltage & ground wires courtesy of the pc?; and even digital transfers of data using a physical cable are still analog in nature? C'mon flat earth friend, if we had everything figured out every single one of us would have perfectly recorded music played back perfectly in our listening rooms for a small price with no need for those pesky concert tickets anymore. ;)
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According to the engineer who developed the TI/BurrBrown 2700 series of USB codecs the world is not flat. The USB interface when used for audio transmission adds measurable distortion to the recovered audio signal. That interface includes the the USB cable between the two USB devices which is why we can hear the cables. The USB transmission of streaming audio data is far from perfect at this time.
Scotty
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I did some research over the weekend on the USB standard and how audio portion was implemented. I did a brief post in another thread here
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=80197.msg771115#msg771115 (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=80197.msg771115#msg771115)
Long story short, USB clearly has issues on how it implemented the audio and when there is a failure you will loose 1ms of audio. I do see now how folks would see an improvement with a properly shielded USB cable.
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I had the same LFD cables as well. You've got to try the Crimson Music-Links. But, since this isn't really the place to go on about this particular topic you're welcome to email me if you want to follow up. I'd be interested to hear about your experience with the Compact 7s...they are on my very short list of speakers when I get around to that upgrade.
Are you using the Tranquility and/or the Essential usb cable?
royshouse@earthlink.net