Audiocadabra USB cable tour

[vrao]

Hi,
Happy new year to everyone.

Denny from Audiocadabra is willing to send his dual headed USB cable out on tour to EU. So I would suggest you seize this opportunity to try out this excellent cable. This cable has been running in my system for the last few weeks.

Please let me know on the forum or PM if interested, and we can set a tour.

http://www.audiocadabra.com/blog/optimus-handcrafted-dual-headed-usb-cables/

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/audiocadabra/1.html

Regards,
VJ

[PeterSt]

Aha, Tourman now is going the Indie route now eh ?

What I didn't get from the end of that review is where the braided version is. So he refers to that as for all new productions and tells about a photo - which I think is not shown at all (just another one from 6Moons instead). But on the website still no braid to be seen ?

The only thing I thought was : You can't just put a braid around it and hope it still performs the same.

Peter

[vrao]

Peter,
Yup ... the Indie way 
That was the first question I asked Denny, after reading that review. Apparently that braid process is used for longer cables to help manage it better. So shorter cables are still  MK-I.
 

[juanpmar]

Hi VJ,  as you are using this cable,  how you compare it to the YFS cable?

Regards,
Juan

[vrao]

Hi Juan,

I dont have the YFS cable with me anymore.

After trying a few USB cables, I'm forming my concept of the USB sound. I'll post that in detail in the comming weeks.

The audiocadabra cable is similar to Peter's cable in terms of performance. The sound is spectrally balanced. Its not a "wow" cable. There is a great head nodding factor, which I suspect related to cable specifics. However I need to have more listening time to form my opinion.
The YFS cable from my memory, is a wow cable, then it might take you eitherway.

I suggest everyone to try both cables.


Regards,
VJ

[PeterSt]

Thank you VJ.

[manisandher]

Hi,
Happy new year to everyone.

Denny from Audiocadabra is willing to send his dual headed USB cable out on tour to EU.

Hi VJ, Happy New Year to you too.

I haven't received the YFS yet (very much looking forward to it), but I'd love to have a listen to the Audiocadabra too. My parents were originally from India, so I almost feel I have to ;-)

Let me know how the logistics will pan out, and if there's anything you'd like me to do at this point.

Cheers,
Mani.

[Scroobius]

For a while I have been using a longer USB cable (1m) due to restrictions down to position of kit in my rack. But this weekend I went back to using a very short USB cable (25cm ish). Short sounds better (or could it be a particular length sounds better?) for sure as previously posted - the two cables are bog standard cheapo.

I know Mani has tried short versus longer and prefers short.  It would be interesting for Mani to try the YFS versus longer ordinaire and then versus short ordinaire. Not very scientific I know but it would be interesting to get at least some thoughts on cable type versus length. Although realistically it may not be possible to come up with any meaningful answers. Having said that if the difference between long and short ordinaire is bigger than the difference between YFS and same length USB ordinaire that could be interesting.

Cheers

Paul

[juanpmar]

VJ, I´d like to be also in the list for the Audiocadabra cable.

Best regards,
Juan

[manisandher]

It would be interesting for Mani to try the YFS versus longer ordinaire and then versus short ordinaire.

Should be possible Paul. The only issue I'm going to have is positioning my PC (it really is a 'monster') close enough to the NOS1a's USB port to be able to use the 'short ordinaire' cable. I've got a 25cm USB cable coming through soon and will certainly try.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

alert !

I keep on saying that when the cable meets the 90 Ohm impedance spec, it should not matter much.

And no, nothing looks like the Cadabra is going to meet that spec but this could be just my way if looking at things.

In the very end I'd say that completely nothing is made for the 90 Ohm impedance, I mean, no input/output terminals, nothing on the output side of things (PC) and nothing on the input side (DAC, ahum). And no, not the cables either. The more I think about this the more I don't trust it, while still everything looks like "working".
What bugs me most is that I don't really see how this influences sound to begin with. But it does. However, what I can imagine (a bit of a long shot) is that the shorter cable can direct a ground loop to another path than the longer (it works like this anyway).

Peter

[manisandher]

Hey Peter, you're right of course. So what are we left with? Two options:

i. you solve this USB interface/cable issue once and for all
ii. everyone continues with the trial & error, in the hope of stumbling upon 'the best USB cable' for their system

'VJ's tours' are an excellent way of enabling the latter.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

'VJ's tours' are an excellent way of enabling the latter.

Mani, sure Yes. And super thanks to VJ.

But you know, I hate hit and miss guessing, already because it wastes my time too much. So really, every single day (for how long now I can't remember) I *have* to observe SQ or newly introduced behaviour. And neither I can't when SQ is bad to begin with (you don't want to meet my mood when such a thing happens). So I don't know about you (all) but I developed an aversy (??) against such trial and error endeavours.

i. you solve this USB interface/cable issue once and for all

So Yes. And we'd say that if I could do it for one cable (Blaxius) I can do it for another as well. Well maybe. At least this seems a fruitful thing to myself. But I am far less confident for USB at this moment.

I may have one other thing to add :

For you all (?) it will be the most logical to "just try" another USB cable. So there some kind of obession starts in the first place. I exactly never do that, unless I am forced to for some reason. This, while I know too it can make a difference. But what I do is looking at different angles at about everything and when something doesn't sound right, I *will* solve that by other means. Example could be the YFS which does not sound at all in my system. Really not. But if I could psychologically manage to let it stay in for months, you can bet it will sound good at the end. Example of the reality of that is Windows 8 once again, because how much I (we !) struggled to get that right. And didn't that turn out for the way better. But there's a difference : With Windows 8 we all could hear upsides in the midst of the downsides. So something to hunt after (remove the downsides).
But this was thus very time consuming and I now rather stay out of that if possible.

And thus back to technicalities :
If I can manage to create a cable which has the technical specs as how I envision them - and all the way like with the Blaxius - then or things will work out, or they don't and I should be able to hear why and next "see" why. This is a bit similar to again the Blaxius example, which just doesn't want to work when not all the specs for it are met, like leaving in the XLR connection would not be that. I think I "wasted" (but for the good cause !) two weeks on that alone, but I already knew it was against all odds (because technically wrong).
So what it requires first is getting together those specs in their elements (components !) all the way through, which is exactly why I did not proceed with that yet. The specs G-D do not exist that I can find. Same like trying to find BNC to RCA connectors which are 75 Ohm based. I think I found 3 which looked trustworthy, one of them being vdH. But then I asked the man in person (!) the other day, and it became the first which was THUS not to be trusted. Nice ! not.
Dive deeper into matters, like in my case also interlinks, and if you then attempt to discuss the response is way sooner than you want "hey, I have studied physics my boy". Oh. And isn't this the same as how it went with KOJ.

Moral : Nothing is to be trusted and we need to learn all ourselves. Could cause a memory overflow at some stage.

Peter

[manisandher]

Nothing is to be trusted and we need to learn all ourselves. Could cause a memory overflow at some stage.

Yeah, especially at your age 

Mani.

[Jud]

And isn't this the same as how it went with KOJ.

Ah.  Is there anything about that anywhere on site?