USB Nervosa Thread Decrapifiers, pro interfaces, and bears oh my

No Yggdrasil makes me sad panda...I need to partake in USB audionervosa ;D

Still need to hear that some day or get someone who's very familiar with it to compare to my gamma 3.

 

Just a quick $0.02 that, IMO, one thing this thread (and most threads like it regardless of venue) often suffers is the implicit assumption that it's definitively possible for a USB gizmo to "have a sound" in a way that enables direct gizmo to gizmo sound quality compares in the abstract, i.e. in isolation. So, feel free to bring USB jitter measurements and device comparisons all day long, but I still do not and as far as I know can not listen to a USB interface with my speakers or headphones. So, not to perpetuate what I've learned to be the NWAVguy measurbation syndrome, but if your USB gizmo changes the interface noise characteristics measurably in an eye diagram or the period jitter (which probably doesn't matter but I digress) or long term sample-to-sample jitter characteristics or creates a word clock that is 10 picoseconds more accurate, great! I for one love seeing that data. But I can't draw a certain conclusion from it. The problem is that it can still be doing all that in a way that doesn't measurably change the signal going in to my transducer or at least change it in ways that would be individually let alone universally perceived as positive or even significant. It's always the whole chain that creates the sound, and your USB gizmo mileage can and will vary based on that chain. So my appeal to sanity would be to at least try not to come to these threads with "Rednet is better than this other thing" and the like. "Vinyl is better" I can stomach, but I can't be convinced that USB gizmos can have a meaningful sound quality ranking relative to each other in general. Baz out.

 

Make the trip over to one of our NY meets sometime. A couple of us have Yggys.

 

I'm suspicious that beyond seriously shit USB implementations what I had for dinner probably makes more difference to what I'm hearing than a string of Mutecs.

 

I totally agree and think all comments about USB gizmos, USB cables, or S/PDIF cables should always include the phrase "to me in my system". There are just too many equipment interaction variables and individual preferences for absolute "this is always better than that" claims.

 

IMO

 

If someone hears a "sound" then it isn't an assumption. Even if it's a bugfix firmware point release stated by the manufacturer to make no audible difference.

 

Am I persona no grata when I say that I usually never use a Wyrd, and all my USB cables either come from the PYST bin or from Monoprice?

Life's too short.

 

this is a super useful discussion to have and a generally good way to check our collective sanity. with all of the defuckification loaners i recently participated in, i fall in the camp that differences are super subtle and sometimes border on marginal at best or insignificant. but when differences are voiced and put to language, the often small differences that require a great deal of focus to tease apart are magnified and take on hyperbolic proportions as a way to explain their relative differences. so for me, i'm more comfortable saying that many of these doodads do diddly to music rather than necessarily saying that they sound like shit.

that said, i find the logic a bit problematic:

because drfindley and bazelio (whose ears I trust) and i, all felt that regen did some nice things to digital, as did mutec, off of adam's digital chain (which includes OSX, as does mine). so for every group where people inherently trust their own group's ears, there will be another group who reach a different conclusion off of a different system.

EDIT: Went to get a coffee and had a moment of clarity regarding this. these communities are like massive consensus generation machines. although i still think the logic is tricky-- because counterpoints can always be found,-- consensus from trusted sources is what we're after, at least in part. if not then we're up shit creek. anyway this is an interesting topic and i'll just keep thinking about it rather than putting incomplete thoughts to paper.

and this is comment of the day award right here, at the least i really appreciate it:

because audiophilia nervosa is a shit condition that interferes with musical enjoyment and often leads to squandering large sums of money.

 

Sorry if this question has been asked already but can you actually hear sonic differences between a decent usb port over any of these stupid usb devices you guys are talking about? It seems like there is more Money over Quality going around on this topic. At the end of the of the day isn't the connection just moving 1s and 0s across a cable?

 

Is your comment about 'stupid usb devices' purely theoretical in nature, or have you actually tried it? If the former, I think I finally understand what SBAF's focus on SNR is all about...

 

Please take a little time and do some homework. Ones and Zeros do not magically march across a usb cable to make music.

It is a lot more effing complex than that, full stop.

 

If people are so hung up about USB, why not use one of the other methods of getting audio from PC to DAC? Forget USB. Write it off as not being good enough for audio.

OK, OK, I used to be very disinclined to use it at all. Hangover from early PC audio days when USB1.0 was seriously not good enough for audio. I got rid of the hangover, which is not to say that I entirely dispelled the prejudice, but hey... using it anyway.

 

USB is shit but not every one can go with AES card route. Some of my friends still use Windows laptop, so no slot for PCIE card like Lynx E22, of course no Thunderbolt either, and modern laptop don't have toslink anymore. So USB-defuckier like Regen, Mutec, F-1 still very useful for them.

 

I should try to do that. I'll try to keep an eye out for your next meet out that way. I'd have had a great excuse before as the company I work for has an office in Manhattan, but that company just got bought out. Tough luck.

Lol, that's fair. So, obviously I have audiophile nervosa regardless of the equipment I own...never really trust my own ears half the time.

So, about those relative merits...

Hahaha I'll stop now. Thanks for indulging me