Was what you read based on experience connecting an external USB hard drive to an Oppo player, or to some other kind of player, or to a computer, or to connection of a computer to a USB DAC? Those are all very different situations from a technical standpoint.
Also, if you hear a difference between playback from the new hard drive and from the flash drives, I would see no reason to necessarily attribute the difference to the cable. I would think that a more likely explanation would be that the design of the player is such that the player itself sounds different when it plays from one medium compared to the other. Due for example to differences in internal noise coupling that may affect either analog circuit points or jitter at the point of D/A conversion.
Regards,
-- Al
Also, if you hear a difference between playback from the new hard drive and from the flash drives, I would see no reason to necessarily attribute the difference to the cable. I would think that a more likely explanation would be that the design of the player is such that the player itself sounds different when it plays from one medium compared to the other. Due for example to differences in internal noise coupling that may affect either analog circuit points or jitter at the point of D/A conversion.
Regards,
-- Al