NOS1 USB Tweaks - do they work?

Greetings Phasure NOS1 owners,

As a brand new NOS1 owner myself, I would like to share my listening impressions regarding some of the USB related tweaks that worked in my previous audio setup that included an Empirical Audio Offramp Turbo5 and a NAD C390DD dac/digital amplifier.

I did a lot of digital cable testing, both usb and s/pdif in that old setup that contributed greatly to the sound of the NAD. The USB cable that I settled on had a little tour to a number of other audiophiles homes and get-togethers and generated several sales for the manufacturer as a result. In all the systems that the cable went into it produced the preferred sound and could therefore be considered as a very consistent performer.

Now that I have over 100hrs on my new NOS1 toy, I thought that I would try out the super-usb cable as well as a Shortblock common-mode filter to see if improvements could be made to the sound. I have built a brand new XX computer according to Peters recipe but run my existing PPAstudio USB3 card in preference to the mobo USB3 ports. This card is based on a NEC chip and uses Rhenesas drivers but has been modded so that it does not take power from the PCIe bus and uses a high grade silver transformer for isolation as well as upgraded TCXO. The card must be powered separately but I am powering it from its own line from the BeQuiet psu. At a later date I will try a high grade linear supply on this card to see if it makes as much a difference to the NOS1 as it did to my old setup.

Now the listening. It took a while, but I did hear a tiny difference between the cheapo cable supplied with the NOS1 and the super-usb cable. It came across as a slight softening, or muffling of the higher frequencies and was difficult to detect, but it was there. This difference is nowhere near what I and others have experienced with this cable in other systems which included dacs and reclockers like Offramps, Audiophilleo, PDX, Playback Designs, Chord QuteHD, Mark Levinson 360, AMR DP-777. Which cable is more accurate? I don't know. I do know that the cheapo cable is staying and the AU$660 cable will be sold.

I got a similar result with the Shortblock common-mode filter. In my previous setup I had tested the SOtM PCIe card (don't like it), the Adnaco S3B (even with a linear psu I didn't like it) and the PPAstudio usb card (I like it - all positives - no negatives - got better with a linear psu) and the Shortblock worked well with the Adnaco and the PPAstudio card, but did not work at all well with the SOtM card. At the time I theorised that it was because the SOtM is the only one of the three that filters its incoming power and that a second stage of filtering with the Shortblock was detrimental on a product I was already not so keen on. The result of the Shortblock with the Phasure NOS1 was similar to the result of the Shortblock with the SOtM card: a smearing of the image, a slight hit to the dynamics. In short, the Shortblock has no place with the NOS1.

The result of all this is that I feel zero compulsion to further test USB cables and filters because I think Peter has got the USB isolation of the NOS1 better than anything else that I have heard. Kudos to you Peter...that is a rare and fantastic result!!

Cheers,

Anthony

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