Best USB cable between PC and NOS1?

[Scroobius]

Very interesting to hear about the Mapleshade USB cable also to hear about friendships made through this forum. Nick, me and Mani had a great day at Mani's last week - thanks Mani for your hospitality.

I was just thinking about the Mapleshade and wondering how it could influence sound quality. I can only imagine it would be jitter that could be improved mmmm maybe. If it is jitter then surely reducing jitter at source would be the best place to start. The AUDIO GRADE USB 3.0 PCIE CARD has made a very fundamental improvement to my system AND it is cheaper than the Mapleshade. It would be interesting to hear (or if it was possible measure!) the difference the PCie card makes then the Mapleshade.

But of course if the Mapleshade is free - well that has to be a no brainer.

P

[juanpmar]

Hi Paul,

I wouldn´t see it as a clash between the Audio Grade PCIe card and the Mapleshade cable, each of them can make improvements (or not) and can be complementary (or not) as any other components that we tested. Both are priced almost the same $135 the cable and $129 the card. Maybe someone has in mind to try both.

Juan

[Jud]

I don't know enough to be reductionist about the possible ways the Mapleshade cable might influence sound quality.  One thing the designer mentions is that the power lead is not in such close proximity to the ground and signal leads as in most USB cables.

[Stanray]

I was intrigued by the possible influence an USB-cable might have on SQ. I could hear differences in my system between a stock cable and a better €10 USB 3-cable. For this USB3-cable an USB3 to USB2 converter was necessary to fit to the NOS1. However this converter wasn't an elegant solution and might not be a good thing for SQ.

Inspired by the Mapleshade site and other USB-cable manufacturers (data-only types), I decided to try to make an USB-cable myself, with some stuff I had lying around.
For the D+ and D- I used Cardas tonearm wire, this is very thin AWG 32 copper wire. This was loosely twisted in a open Teflon mesh. No V+ wire was used, only the GND wire. This was finished with gold plated USB-connectors and some heat shrink.

SQ is significantly better than other USB-cables (I never tried expensive cables) and I concur all what Juan described above.  Good quality recordings sound better and poor recordings, I didn’t listen to anymore, become listenable again.

I have no clue what explains this shift in SQ and if and how it relates to the “USB-clock discussion”. Please note that my pc and NOS1 are fed by a Purepower power regenerator.   

Anyway, thanks all for the info above.

Regards,
Stanley