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I am curious to hear of others' experiences with USB cable quality and designs when running them into the AN DAC's USB port. I plan to obtain a 3m cable to feed a 4.1LE from my Windows 7 PC. Any recommendations from experience? Thanks!
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I have DAC 4.1LE. Never installed Hagtech board. I use a DH Labs USB cable from Window 7 64bit Toshiba Portege laptop running JPlay mini to ART Legato SPDIF to USB converter, which has its own power supply, and then,a BNC cable to the 4.1. Quite happy with this setup. The DH Labs cable is better than generic USB that I used before.
I am a fan of the flat cables that separate the power and signal cables. I use the Wireworld Ultraviolet cable. You can get the same cable with silver plate, and pure silver wiring, but I don't want to pay for that in a digital setting, YMMV.
A questions I would ask though, I have the DAC4.1, but did not use the USB kit for my DAC, and feed an XLR from a Stello U3. Does the PSU in the DAC 4.1 feed the power to the USB board? or does it come in from the computer? If the power comes from the DAC PSU, then I would look for a USB cable that is lacking the power wiring, and keep all the computer derived power away from your DAC.
The integrated USB receiver is the Hagerman Tech USB to SPDIF converter which does use power supplied by the USB cable.
http://www.hagtech.com/images/hagusbschem.gif
It's a very simple and minimal solution with little regard for jitter reduction and sound quality. No doubt an external power supply (spliced into the USB cable) would improve performance, however getting good audio from USB requires a lot more design considerations. I've had really good results with my Off-Ramp 5 from empirical audio.
Newer USB to SPDIF converters are asynchronous and use their own heavily regulated power supplies. Asynchronous devices perform as the master clock, which alleviates the PC from having to perform as the master clock.
PCs have relatively noisy power supplies and are poorly suited for anything other than providing data with bit accuracy. Because Async devices master clock internally, and if the devices has it's own power supply, then the quality of the USB cable supplying them with data from the PC becomes much less critical.
Brett, I appreciate the clarification. I am actually awaiting my kit to build, so I do not have my hands around all of the details yet. I have thought that I may try out the Off-Ramp product some time down the road; can't go wrong with a trial period. Glad to hear that yours is proving such a good match!
I use the M2Tech EVO full stack (with separate external clock and external PSU. I can't compare it to the highly regarded Off-Ramp5 but I can tell you it sounds great, better than a good CDP and less money than the Off-Ramp.
On USB I use an AudioQuest Crimson which was around 100 US for a 1 meter cable.
SPDIF to the DAC I use Audio Note AN/V coax 75 ohm.
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