Deal with what, a lot of us work in the world of electronics, I regularly work on electronics that have to be built and assembled to IPC class 3, class 3A level and EMC protection to match. By following good and well tested engineering practice we avoid noise issues. But open electronics like that is not by a large stretch of the imagination good for EMC, never mind safety. I would love to know what the advantages are of mounting DACs and PC mother boards open frame on wood blocks, does the species of wood affect the sound!
Peter does some very neat chip amp modules, they are really nice looking units, mostly heat sinking, and wood.
DIY Chip Amplifier Kits, PCB's, Components and Information.
DIY Chip Amplifier Kits, PCB's, Components and Information.
I guess putting a pair of chip amps in a nice box with wood trimmings must improve their sound quite a lot? Ah, moment of light dawning: why not use wood as the dielectric in a USB cable? Of course you might need to maintain constant humidity but it is well known that sensitivity to trivial details is a sign of fine discrimination in high-end systems.
OK, if you think you are advancing art while the others just refuse advancement, do it properly. Present a credible blind listening test results that you can distinguish the sound of your cable compared to a stock USB cable. All you need is a friend of yours to switch the cables for you. And I hope your cable will not differentiate itself by the dropouts due to its incorrect impedance you talked about in your initial post.
After that we can talk about closed thinking etc. So far you have not presented anything to consider seriously, just your excited feelings.
I know you will not present the results, no-one in this thread claiming what you claim ever has. And there were quite a few before you.
In order to advance something you first have to understand it. Then you may realise that there is nothing to advance. Come back and talk to us once you understand how transmission lines work and what characteristic impedance is, how to calculate it and how to measure it. Only then will you be able to read and understand the USB cable spec.wlowes said:
No, just amusement at the foolishness of those who seem to regard ignorance as a more advanced form of knowledge.
Wrong, it is not art it is science, and digital designs requires you to pay homage to physics and the rules that developed from Maxwell through Oliver Heaviside, who gave us the initial transmission line theory. Where is the self congratulation, you are the one making the claims with absolutely no back up.
Just another person embracing Audiophool myths with no engineering background and claiming some new improvement with no scientific empirical measurements (using silver cable, why?).
Unfortunately the home audio field is now is saturated with these sort of claims, beliefs and semi scientific marketing distortions of reality. It does not do the whole field any good and does not help the cause for decent audio reproduction, and in many cases some of the claims and beliefs are laughed at by people in mainstream electronics. Of course you will not see that mainstream electronics (the 'engineering elite'!!) is doing some pretty amazing things that could filter down to audio if you and others like you would look more at the science behind it all, instead of following out dated myths.
As to caustic closed thinking, I work on lots cutting edge technology (as do others on this site) way more demanding than audio reproduction, and in my chosen career I have to reassess my beliefs and have to follow a regime of constant study to keep up to date with new technology, methods of working and other ever changing factors (EMC being but one).
When one is presented with all the information regarding the USB bus and digital transmission and then choses to ignore it, would that not be construed as closed thinking.
Why are you guys criticising the guy for his DIY efforts ? this IS diy, yes?
Some of you guys might be the best things in digital audio cabling design, and you obviously have all the answers to anything/everything concerning usb connections, and I applaud your knowledge, but you should be supporting his efforts, not canning the guy for trying.
This isn't the "snake oil" thread.
Some of you guys might be the best things in digital audio cabling design, and you obviously have all the answers to anything/everything concerning usb connections, and I applaud your knowledge, but you should be supporting his efforts, not canning the guy for trying.
This isn't the "snake oil" thread.
It is a snake oil thread; it is just that in this thread the oil is home-produced.
None of us claim to "the best thing in digital audio cabling design". On the contrary, we say that there is no such thing. All that is needed is a cable which meets the USB spec. No improvement can possibly come from anyone who can't even read the USB spec with understanding. All USB has to do is get bits from here to there unharmed - to do this it needs either a very short cable or one which has the right characteristic impedance. This is not rocket science, but elementary electronics. People who don't even understand the basics should not be surprised if their efforts at 'improvement' are criticised by those who know a bit more than the basics on the grounds that they don't even meet the spec, let alone improve on it.
We cannot support the 'efforts' of someone who clearly doesn't understand what he is doing, except perhaps in the way one might praise the painting efforts of a 3-year-old child. We are not 'canning' the guy for trying, but for persisting in his false beliefs that his bad cable somehow improves the sound. If he was really trying to advance the art he would listen to those who point out his mistakes. We all learn from each other.
Why is it that in this forum no statement or belief, however foolish, is so daft that nobody will not pop up and support it?
None of us claim to "the best thing in digital audio cabling design". On the contrary, we say that there is no such thing. All that is needed is a cable which meets the USB spec. No improvement can possibly come from anyone who can't even read the USB spec with understanding. All USB has to do is get bits from here to there unharmed - to do this it needs either a very short cable or one which has the right characteristic impedance. This is not rocket science, but elementary electronics. People who don't even understand the basics should not be surprised if their efforts at 'improvement' are criticised by those who know a bit more than the basics on the grounds that they don't even meet the spec, let alone improve on it.
We cannot support the 'efforts' of someone who clearly doesn't understand what he is doing, except perhaps in the way one might praise the painting efforts of a 3-year-old child. We are not 'canning' the guy for trying, but for persisting in his false beliefs that his bad cable somehow improves the sound. If he was really trying to advance the art he would listen to those who point out his mistakes. We all learn from each other.
Why is it that in this forum no statement or belief, however foolish, is so daft that nobody will not pop up and support it?
Numerous pointers and links to USB design guides and a whole site USB.org, where you can find all the information, guidelines and best engineering practices for USB design have been provided. That is where we get our answers when doing anything with USB. And with any other interface we have to work with (SATA, Ethernet, PCIe VME etc.). We don't hold all the knowledge we go away and learn it and follow the rules and guidelines.
How can you develop any improvements when you don't understand even the basics. I lay out USB interfaces lots of boards as it is a standard interface, not just for PC's (because it works and everybody follows the rules, hence the UNIVERSAL) and on every one I have to work out what layers the D+/- signals are going to be routed on, calculate the track width to get the correct width to achieve 90 ohms differential impedance, length match the diff pair, place the EMC components in the correct positions etc etc. I don't sit there and think I'll just route it as normal signals a few mms apart and ignore the length matching or any other requirements. Don't forget a highside switch to control the 5V to allow hot connections, and EMC filtering on these lines, preferably supplying the 5V from its own regulator.
As to cables, don't make USB ones, the bus is so entwined with our electronic gadgets that cables are cheap, just by the factors of supply and demand, and the interface was designed to use a fairly simple cable configuration.
O/T but this reminds me of a conversation I had with a circuit designer I did sub contract work for some years ago. He asked me if I used SMD's for audio and I foolishly told him no because some audiophiles had told me they didn't sound as good as through hole components. He just raised an eyebrow at me.
The problem is that other people will believe his "findings" and waste their time and money doing the same kind of things. Marce and DF96 (among others) are doing the community a service by debunking dead-ends.
Rather than refusing the criticisms, one should rather ask where to concentrate his diy efforts instead.
I don't and I wouldn't. What got me (later) and presumably the bloke I was talking about (at the time) was the blanket dismissal of ALL SMD components as sounding poorer than through hole components.
I raised this as an example of taking audiophile dogma to literally without actually putting it to the test. You can seem foolish without realising it until much later, I certainly did but I learned a lesson there so some good came of it.
Phofman
Thank you. This post restores my hope for this community.
Your suggestion hits the mark. And if I am to in any way progress the art I must take up your challenge, and hopefully usefully engage some of the talent with the knowledge I lack to work with me to use that knowledge to take it past the trial and error that I have at my disposal.
I think me posting that I hear something will not be considered by current posters of credible evidence of something worth pursuing. And who knows, I have been a victim to imagining audio improvements that turned out to be a flight of fantasy.
My plan is as follows. I live in Toronto and have hosted DIY meets at my business location. From that group there is a moderator of this site who appears to have credibility with the hard core designers at DIYAUDIO based on his work with shunt regs. I have invited him over to my home before to audition my system, and has offered to bring a scope and check out what is going on. He seemed impressed by the results I have achieved and fwiw I believe he has a well tuned ear. I'll see if he is interested in coming and at least be the listener in the A B test of a high quality commercial cable vs the one I claim bests it. Perhaps he can then suggest running a .WAV track with a clean test signal to see what is happening with the soup mix of impedance mismatches.
This exercise will be quite helpful. I am on a path to take all of these findings and make a clean build of my final music server. My plan involves a 3d layout aimed at ultra short signal path for both usb and I2S while isolating the digital from the analogue. Hate to go to all that trouble based on an incorrect flight of fantasy.
This will take a while, so the sceptics can chant how I am just another whatever. If nothing else within a few weeks I'll report if there is independent validation of my imagined sound quality.
Again, thanks for a constructive post. I'll disengage from this thread until I have something credible to report.
wlowes - the problem (as I see it) is that there are so many dubious claims made which get given credibility by reviewers that it has made many people cynical. I've paid out good money in the past for fancy rca plugs, banana plugs, fancy speaker wire etc only to find that they made no worthwhile improvement and sometimes actually made my system sound worse. When I repeated my findings, objectivist's said why would these components help in any way and subjectivists said that it was probably due to my system or hearing not being up to it. I knew that was rubbish so nowadays I try to sit on the fence and watch. That said some of the dafter claims made and insane prices do make me laugh, I'm only human after all
Some of the wise heads on here may seem negative in their comments at times but I think they are vital in that they help to inject common sense and a degree of balance in an area which has become full of misinformation and exploitation. I'm glad they are here.
Good luck with your cables.
Davy
Some of the wise heads on here may seem negative in their comments at times but I think they are vital in that they help to inject common sense and a degree of balance in an area which has become full of misinformation and exploitation. I'm glad they are here.
Good luck with your cables.
Davy
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