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I have been running an Audioquest Carbon USB cable (1.5m) from my macmini to my Wavelength Brick. I recently swapped it for a Mapleshade clearlink. All I can say it was a huge improvement- more balanced presentation, more energy at the top, and more dynamics, and it is still breaking in. So far there is a more balanced natural and crisper sound without compressed precussion.
I since used the AQ Carbon to connect my PC to NAD 30120D in another room, and I must say the AQ has the same dark haze and compressed dynamics in certain frequencies that include the drums, which get reduced to a thump instead of a whack or a chest pounding beat. I am flabbergasted that such a colored underperforming product that sells for over $100 does not get called out in the media,
Follow Ups:
When it comes to digital cables of any kind I just don't seem to share the same audible benefits that I have gained with analog interconnects, speaker cables and power cables. I've tried USB cables from Cardas, Nordost, Kimber, Wireworld, Audioquest and now the Shunyata Venom. While,I have admired the build, fit and finish to my ears in my system if there is inaudible improvement or even simple changes I fail to hear them.
My experience has been rather the opposite. Well, at least for analog interconnects and the like I find the differences to be rather minute. Whereas with USB cables, absolutely I can hear a difference, and with a USB Isolator or similar device even more so. Hell, even changing USB behavior via registry settings has an audible effect in my experience.
That all being said with respect to digital, power cables/conditioning/tweaks/the like have a profound effect in my experience.
Always glad to see another droll engineer-type with likely no audio expertise such as "Garg0yle" have a conniption fit over the issue though. After all, he has a 0 in his username, 1's and 0's and all that.
My experience with cables is that people tend to hear what they expect to hear when performing subjective listening tests.With objective (some type of attempt at blind) testing, the genuine look of surprise on people's faces when they hear something (or fail to hear something) different than what they expected is a lot of fun to observe. :-)
Edits: 12/18/14
I'm sorry Scrith but exactly how do you know what people expect to hear and what they do hear. That may be true for yourself and it might be true for others but the only way I would know that for certain is if they told me "I expected to here this and I did hear that". Otherwise I am only making an assumption on other people's experiences.
Well, it usually comes from the discussion that inspires the blind test in the first place. Like if I hear someone say "I think WAV sounds a lot better than FLAC" I will invite them to try a blind test. Whether the response is "Gee, they sound about the same" or "A clearly sounds better than B", the results are interesting and helpful, unlike any subjective review I have ever read.
The only thing he knows is what he hears, or more precisely what he doesn't hear, himself.Why he tries to extrapolate from that, jumping to conclusions pertaining to others - that's truly beyond comprehension.
Edits: 12/18/14
Not banned at the moment for your stupid comments? Congrats, enjoy it while it lasts!
Edits: 12/19/14
.... not just stupid, but also betray total lack of experience, and lack of respect for experience of others.
I've no idea what you think you're doing here, but result definitely stinks. Badly.
I am not surprised when I fail to hear consciously what I had intuited to be the case. This is a normal situation, how the mind works. One of the reasons why this happens is that typically there are only a few portions of a track that are "tells" for small differences. If you are not paying conscious attention at these points your conscious mind will miss the clues, although your subconscious has already taken these into account. There are other issues as well having to do with memory effects. The mind builds an acoustic model over time and this ability was not designed to deal with "teleportation" from one electronically created sound field to another.These effects are surprising the first few times they are encountered. With more experience and effort one can go beyond this stage. One will never go beyond this stage without a lot of effort and that requires belief that success is a possibility. Note that an unsuccessful test does not prove that a difference could not be heard. Failure to find evidence of guilt is not proof of innocence.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Edits: 12/18/14
I agree, blind tests are not the final word on anything, but experience has shown me they are much more valuable than someone else's subjective review, which are almost always heavily influenced by expectations (e.g. "The world's most expensive cable was supposed to sound amazing, and boy did it ever!"). I have, on occasion, noticed something long after a change to my system that didn't initially seem to have much impact, such as a cable change, weeks later...usually I am just happily listening to some music I haven't listened to in awhile and I think I suddenly heard something different or new, so I ask my patient wife to try an informal blind test for me with and without the change, and sometimes the difference is clearly discernible (and sometimes it isn't, which I usually just chalk up to not remembering it quite right).
Edits: 12/20/14
That is because you are honest and rational.
None of these others guys can hear a difference either.
A USB cable made from coat hangers will sound as good as an audiophool cable.
If the cable is too long, it will fail the parity check and not work at all.
I once did a single blind test of an optical cable versus a coax cable. Levels were perfectly matched. Spent about a half hour listening to music with both cables until I could identify a short segment of music that I noticed a difference in sound. We then did the blind test with that segment of music I correctly identified which cable I was hearing in 17 out of 17 tries. Personally I feel DBT is a waste of time and feel only long term listening is the way to compare components. I have an Atlas USB cable and am being sent a Chord USB cable. I will compare the to and see if I here any differences
Alan
Alan
But that doesn't mean that blind tests aren't useful. Your example is a good one....in a blind test you heard a difference, and proved it. That is much more useful to all of us than some subjective review where you gush for four paragraphs about all the amazing things you heard with your pricy new cable with all sorts of flowery language and drool-stained photos of the fancy box it was packaged in when you received it from the manufacturer.
Edits: 12/20/14 12/20/14
I've found that also.
"flowery language and drool-stained photos of the fancy box it was packaged in"
OK, I'm laughing. Sounds like the opening (or is it the debouching) of an Apple product. It pains me to have to pay the marked up price for that glitz and glitter that apparently gives real devotees an orgasmic "out of box" experience.
In contrast I bought some stuff from Mad Scientist Audio the other day and it came in a scrunched up cardboard box with shredded newspaper in it. And a candy bar. And of course the product which was in perfect shape. Cable manufacturers and Apple could learn a thing or two from them when it comes to packaging: More of it should be edible!
Rick
What did you get and what did you think of its performance? Have been eying their entry level power cable for a some time.
The things I got were the feet. Sort of constrained-layer damping gadgets, very flat on the top and a metal ball on the bottom with a rubbery coating. I have a Nakamichi power amplifier with rather ringy heatsink fins so my first shot, just for fun, was to just lay the three of them across the TOP of the Amp. upside down and overlapping the heatsinks mounting a little to see if I could hear any difference. They didn't actually touch the fins.
Well, the difference was dramatic, I've had the Amp. for decades and have enjoyed listening to it thousands of hours. But just sitting the feet on the top opened up, well, I guess you could say all sorts of inner detail. I don't care for flowery audiophile prose but at least at first blush it was really impressive.
Years ago when Charlie Hanson was a more active poster he advised me to at least put some tape on the heatsink fins to damp the ringing and it's been on my someday-list since. Now that issue has moved up considerably.
That was just yesterday so based on really scant data I'd say that they are pretty good at vibration which oddly enough is what they appear to be designed for...
So, that was a long-winded non-answer to your question as it isn't a cable. However on the basis that the product I bought seems to actually work (even though I'm not applying it right so far), I'd say your odds are pretty good.
I'd be intersted in the hearing how the cables work out if you take the plunge...
Rick
Best sound I got was when all the equipment except for the speakers and last few feet of speaker wires were on a separate floor. Running up and down a flight of stairs kept me in shape and perhaps this affected my hearing. It definitely helped with vibration on the TT and there were no footfalls as the lower floor was a concrete slab.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Man that should be worth at least $10-20K!
I think that at least some of the value of hyper-expensive gear is psychological. Perhaps some of your scheme is of the same ilk. If I had to run downstairs to flip the record it had better be incredibly good or else! And having done so I'd have EARNED the reward of exceptional performance.
Maybe you have invented the first audio tweak that the surgeon general would be willing to endorse!
Rick
Pretending doesn't count - and, since you, personally, by your repeated admission, CAN NOT hear a difference, what do we have left? Nonsensical empty blathering, as usual?
Edits: 12/20/14
You seem to be imagining things again. At no point have I ever made a statement that all cables, of all types, sound exactly the same. And I have the overpriced (well, I bought them used, which helped a bit) Cardas Golden Reference cables to prove it. :-)
Edits: 12/23/14
No one wants to look like a complete idiot, right? Even if, in fact, one can not hear any difference, and posts ad nauseum to that effect, short of admitting the simple fact.
not all cables to my ears, offer a difference, but sometimes, with certain segments of music, I can tell a difference with certain cables...at least I think I can hear differences.
Not saying that this applies across the range of all types of cables and then all cables within a 'type' of cable, but yeah...I can hear some differences.
Chris
The AQ carbon has a very dark coloration, and dampened dynamics, in my system, for whatever reason. I also swapped with a generic cheap black USB and it sounded better than the AQ carbon, in my system. The mapleshade has a distinct cleaner treble, than the other 2. Or maybe I am just a mental case...
Your observation puzzles me considering we're both running the Mac Mini.... and I also owned the Wavelength Brick v3.I use the AQ Carbon and it sounds great, not at all 'dark' or dampened but I run it on a PS Audio NuWave DAC these days.
I ran the Brick with the AQ Carbon, an inexpensive Pangea, and some other USB cable (that purple one in the picture below, I don't recall). The overall sound was still on the dark, soft, and veiled side for me compared to other DACs, regardless of USB cable.
You can barely see my black brick on top the Pass linestage
Brick on my MacBook Pro
Edits: 12/19/14 12/19/14 12/19/14
A few more things since it appears to I am a delusional heretic- the AQ carbon is 1.5 meters which I got from Wavelength, the Mapleshade cable is 1m long. I heard the same muffled sound when I brought this cable to my PC> NAD3020D> Pioneer speaker. I also placed the Wavelength on 3 small brass cones (not Mapleshade) since, and I use a Kimber silver streak from the brick to the preamp.
Yes the Wavelength is dark and somewhat veiled but not as much without the AQ cable (and on the brass cones).
Yes you're not the first to find the Clearlink to be a superior cable to others - you're probably the third or fourth comparison anecdotally I've found on computer audio boards that preferred the Clearlink. One user in particular liked it over his own Audioquest USB cable (forget which model).
Mapleshade is an... interesting company. They certainly go their own way on a lot of products/opinions, and they have gathered a fair amount of followers as a result.
jonbee did a series of mini-reviews over on the cable asylum. As I recall, he liked the Clearlink over the AQ Coffee but found a few other cables that bettered the Clearlink.
Carbon has a lot of resistance, which definitely affects sound quality with analog carbon interconnects. I would think that the resistance might affect the impedance matching for digital even more so than analog. I would recommend sticking with wire. YMMV
Happy Holidays,
John Elison
Enjoy your new cable!
I have been hearing good things about the Shunyata Venom USB cable priced from $125 for .75 meters. I have asked Shunyata to send me one for evaluation.
you just have to listen to the Mapleshade for a week or two and go back to the Carbon. Hopefully, you'll have the same opinion :) BTW, I've read good things about the Clearlink. Which version did you purchase?
Edits: 12/17/14
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