I work in IT too :)
And I when I finally got a USB Server/DAC combo I thought "Great! Now that the master clock in the DAC is independent, and can just pull data packets and buffer them, *finally* digital cables won’t make any difference since the protocol is immune to upstream jitter!"
Then out of curiosity I barrowed a few USB cables one day from my local AV shop. And I could hear subtle, but meaningful, differences between most of them. Sigh.
Similarly, on another free-loan I put stillpoints under the aurender thinking "this can’t possibly make a difference... it’s just serving bits... and not governing the master clock". Surprise again. Clearly audible. Enough to make me fork over the cash for the Stillpoint Ultras.
Now, whether the science behind what I’m hearing is "jitter" (timing irregularities during d/a conversion as you say) or something else... perhaps electrical noise or vibrations being transmitted from one device to another that in some way are affected by the choice of cables or mechanical vibration control... that’s a good question and I’d love for time and research to uncover all of these variables so audio engineers can appropriately design to address it. But whatever the case, I’ve heard what I’ve heard and wanted to share my experiences for others to regard in whatever way works best for them.
Cheers!
p.s. I will definitely pick up a USB cable like you suggest with the ferrite chokes and see if that affects the sound.
And I when I finally got a USB Server/DAC combo I thought "Great! Now that the master clock in the DAC is independent, and can just pull data packets and buffer them, *finally* digital cables won’t make any difference since the protocol is immune to upstream jitter!"
Then out of curiosity I barrowed a few USB cables one day from my local AV shop. And I could hear subtle, but meaningful, differences between most of them. Sigh.
Similarly, on another free-loan I put stillpoints under the aurender thinking "this can’t possibly make a difference... it’s just serving bits... and not governing the master clock". Surprise again. Clearly audible. Enough to make me fork over the cash for the Stillpoint Ultras.
Now, whether the science behind what I’m hearing is "jitter" (timing irregularities during d/a conversion as you say) or something else... perhaps electrical noise or vibrations being transmitted from one device to another that in some way are affected by the choice of cables or mechanical vibration control... that’s a good question and I’d love for time and research to uncover all of these variables so audio engineers can appropriately design to address it. But whatever the case, I’ve heard what I’ve heard and wanted to share my experiences for others to regard in whatever way works best for them.
Cheers!
p.s. I will definitely pick up a USB cable like you suggest with the ferrite chokes and see if that affects the sound.