[coach]

Looking  for some info on a couple of usb cables. The Acoustic Revive and the Tellurium Q silver. Not a lot of reviews to be found. Anybody here using either here?
 

[FullRangeMan]

Not me.

[Phil A]

Welcome!  Never have used either.  Do have an Acoustic Revive LAN isolator though

[JLM]

Welcome.  Haven't used either, but I did a review of 9 longer USB cables a couple of years back that you can find in the critics circle.  My conclusion was to not overspend (just buy Blue Jean Cable and forget about it).

[I.Greyhound Fan]

Welcome.  Haven't used either, but I did a review of 9 longer USB cables a couple of years back that you can find in the critics circle.  My conclusion was to not overspend (just buy Blue Jean Cable and forget about it).

My experience is totally different than yours.  We did a usb cable shoot out with a Wire World Starlight Red $120, WW Starlight Platinum $600, Lightspeed $600 and a $60 Pangea silver.  The results were eye opening to say the least.

The Platinum sounded fabulous, detailed, textured, musical, smooth.  The WW Red sounded veiled and warm but smooth, the Lightspeed was the most detailed and resolving but it was unbearably bright, made your ears bleed.  The Pangea was also unbearably bright but very thin sounding.

The interesting thing was that the person that owned the Platinum and Lightspeed uses the LS in his system.  It is not bright sounding in his system.

Also, after the shoot out we used an Uptone Regen and tested the cables again.  The Regen improved the sound of all the cables.  But the LS still sounded too bright although it was toned down,  the veil on the WW Red was lifted, however, the Pangea still sounded thin and bright although a little less so. 

The DAC used was my Luxman DA-06.

Moral of the story,  USB cables are system dependent and there can be significant differences.  I can't explain why but the differences we heard were not subtle, they were dramatic.

[Wayner]

Interesting to know how a cable can somehow change a digital stream so that the converted analog stream out of the DAC makes the HF bright. In other words, the data stream got some how changed. Which then means if I downloaded any computer files, they would be altered.......

Personally, I use fiber-optic cable between computer and DAC even tho it may be inferior, it electrically isolates the computer from the HIFI.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

Interesting to know how a cable can somehow change a digital stream so that the converted analog stream out of the DAC makes the HF bright. In other words, the data stream got some how changed. Which then means if I downloaded any computer files, they would be altered.......

Personally, I use fiber-optic cable between computer and DAC even tho it may be inferior, it electrically isolates the computer from the HIFI.

Yes it is interesting. We went into the shootout not expecting any significant differences.  Some of the differences are certainly due to the 5v power as the Regen did improve on the sound in all the cables.  It had the least affect on the best sounding cable in the shoot out which was the WW Platinum.  I would love to buy a Platinum but at $600 I will pass until a can get a good deal on a used one.  But, I may get a new DAC in a year or 2 and there may be cheaper usb cables that work with it.

[Wayner]

But my point is that the data stream really should not be corrupted at all. I rather suspect that the various cables are carrying weird stuff thru a shielding component. At any rate, the data stream really can't get altered or if that's the case, computer files transferred with the cable would be corrupt.

[TQdB]

But my point is that the data stream really should not be corrupted at all.

I caught all of that subtlety.

An interconnect's wire(s) being a charged component of a system (which in an analog system creates infinite varieties of resistor) doesn't overtly color the contents of a digital stream. -- As Wayner was saying, either it's a "1" , or a "0" , or it isn't.

The effects of a USB cable, insofar as sound quality in a digital stream, are limited to the areas of: bandwidth-capacity and length.

The transfer of the 1s and 0s should be completed across the conductor with enough integrity to not suffer loss or re-requests, ... and across the length of the conductor before the length-itself causes losses (versus the available time for computational and transfer completion to occur at higher densities, ie for HD music with high sampling rates or bit rates).

So, just have a quality cable with high-bandwidth 'innards', .. and (if I recall correctly to tests on this from around 2010) of a length less than 12 feet, perhaps even just 9 feet.

It might (?) be possible for exotic materials to allow for a slightly longer run of cable than common (cheap) materials, but even that seems dubious and would be obviated by simply keeping the runs at 9 feet or less.

[JerryM]

Looking  for some info on a couple of usb cables. The Acoustic Revive and the Tellurium Q silver. Not a lot of reviews to be found. Anybody here using either here?

Welcome to AudioCircle, coach. 

You should poke around and ask a few questions in the Path of Least Resistance circle.

[coach]

Yeah, I've been poking around this site for a while. And I know that when someone asks a question about a specific product, it opens up all kinds of discussions. I asked about the Acoustic Revive usb cable. I think 3 guys answered the question. But thats ok. All info is good info to me. Thanks Guys.
 

[JLM]

But my point is that the data stream really should not be corrupted at all. I rather suspect that the various cables are carrying weird stuff thru a shielding component. At any rate, the data stream really can't get altered or if that's the case, computer files transferred with the cable would be corrupt.

There's that word.  I recently upgraded my internet service from DSL to fiber optic and now can reliably use Tidal (which sounds noticeable better).  Shouldn't happen according to all the black and white people living on the flat Earth. 

[Wayner]

Well, Tidal uses FLAC for its audio format, DSL can use a number of different formats, but has a 144 Kbps maximum data rate.

You are not even comparing apples to apples.

I'm sure if I sent an MP3 thru a USB cable, it would sound different then a full blown 44.1 wav. And the point is............

[coach]

Hi Guys,
My name is Steve and I've been hanging around this site for some time. I got into this hobby while still living at home with Mom & Dad. Now I have 5 grandkids and I'm still hooked. Anyway, I'm here because I'm in the "hurry up and wait" mode for my pair of Salk Encore's. Also, this is the place for Modwright info as I use SWL 9.0 preamp. I'm looking to upgrade to the LS100. For you guys that have Salk speakers, how often did you contact Jim for any info? Since I live about 30 mins from where the magic happens, I took My wife with me to meet Jim and place my order. Everything I've read here tells me it's worth the wait. And I believe it because I've heard Salk's at many audio shows.
 Glad to be part of the Circle.

[FullRangeMan]

Hi,
I will merge this thread with the previous you started in 2018 as you are not a new member.

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=180975.0