USB cable recommendation


I have an Aurender N150 and a Garlubidor Divinity DAC. I'm trying to figure out if my Transparent USB cable is limiting my hardware. I asked AI to make a suggestion, and they recommended a Shunyata Theta, Audioquest Diamond and Audioquest Carbon. Now I guess I'm looking for a human's suggestion.

dpm2340

Of all the cables that don't make any objective difference in sound, USB are the one's that don't make any difference the most. 

+1 for @roadcykler 

If your DAC is well designed and implemented given basic competence of the USB cable spending more is a waste.

Just like a USB connection from computer to a printer all it has to do is deliver the bits.  The USB connection is driven by the DAC, it requests the data from the source, buffers them and the DAC's clock is responsible for timing.

A possible source of an issues is electrical noise but competent DACs implement isolation in the USB receiver.

To quote:

Key details regarding the input handling of the Divinity DAC:

  • FIFO Buffering & Reclocking: The DAC utilizes a FPGA-based digital FIFO input buffer to store incoming data. This signal is then re-clocked to significantly reduce jitter using high-precision, low-phase-noise active crystal oscillators (45.1584 MHz and 49.152 MHz).
  • USB Input Technology: The USB input is a proprietary solution based on the STM32F446 ARM architecture.
  • Performance Specifications: The USB input supports high-resolution audio, including PCM up to 24-bit/1536 kHz and DSD up to DSD1024. 

     

This buffering technology is designed to decouple the DAC from the jitter of the source device, resulting in cleaner, more accurate sound reproduction. (Emphasis added, retiredaudioguy)

End quote.

If you were using I2S it is a different story, those cable do matter.  As an aside I do wonder why I2S is used, it was intended for use internally to devices, not for interconnecting devices over longer distances.  The cynic in me thinks it is a ploy to get people to spend more on cables, and it might appear to be a more impressive technology than the one used to connect printers and disk drives to your computer.

 

 

We’re not printing here. Those who don’t have experience with streaming shouldn’t be posting.

@retiredaudioguy your understanding is flawed. I2S connection is an internal connection type and was never meant to connect 2 devices via hdmi cable. It was marketed by ps audio so they can sell their streamers and transports together with their DACs. Later on others caught on. Primarily chi-fi. 
There is not even a standard pin layout for i2s. That’s why compatibility is all over the place.

As to USB, the quality of cable makes a tremendous impact in streaming music. Isolation is implemented in both streamer and dac. You can’t dump noise into DAC and assume it will handle it. There’s no DAC that is immune to jitter.
There are only manufacturers that claim their DACs are immune to jitter. 

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I’ve tried a few over the years. Some I’ve bought, some I’ve been lent by friends and companies. Admittedly I have tried the most common ones mentioned on here like shunyata or wireworld because I’ve had their other types of their top

of the line cables in house and didn’t like their sound signature nor overall capability. 
When I first started years ago I had every audioquest cable in house. The carbon was rather nice tonally and head great texture.  Don’t remember the next one up I had but I didn’t like because it didn’t have the texture of weight. The diamond was a carbon but with more capabaility but more sterile. 
I also had Clarus crimson in the battle and a few others.  I purchased the Clarus crimson. It had wonderful flow, nice copper timbres, all the detail and wonderful organic midrange with height. I have been sent many other cables over the years and have always stuck with the crimson. Only recently has it been dethroned by the stealth double tune.   It’s not a huge upgrade but when switching back to the Clarus , it just like every time when you think you found the holy grail and then something else comes along and shows that it can be better. 
The stealth definitely uses some aluminum or tin mixed with something else probably some copper and silver. The aluminum I believe is making brass instruments sound unreal.  Saxophone, trumpet and harmonica are much closer to realistic timbre and are just ridiculously good.  It shows itself slightly in guitar strings but not much which is a good thing.  But this natural timbre affect in the highs is nowhere to be seen in the rest of the spectrum. Everything else id wonderful. It’s very transparent with great speed and detail.  Those that say usb cables matter the least just simply dont have transparent cables. When the rest of your system is like no cables at all you actually hear your usb and Ethernet cable more than anything so it’s important to get the flavor you want.  
FWIW, I did not have the most transparent system when I tried the audioquest. I always keep an open mind about some cables and gear keeping it in the back of mind what they do well. I plan to try audioquest Ethernet soon because I really like the warm strong bass, speed and amazing texture. I think it would be a perfect match with my stealth as long as the Ethernet delivers similar tonal and textural attributes the usb did. But I could be wrong. Maybe I need stealth Ethernet and audioquest usb. That’s the thing about this hobby. It’s a game where you have to play the lottery to get the pieces.