USB cable quality

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As far as data corruption............in optimal conditions, test shows there is usually almost none. But I'd be willing to bet there are many ways you can corrupt USB data a little or a lot, and still have it come out as music. For example read this:

http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/devclass_docs/frmts10.pdf

I do not see any error correction mechanism in those specifications. A flipped bit will produce audible click or ever ruin the whole frame if in the frame header. Where is the potential for the little yet reoccuring corruption? The LSB can be flipped randomly, but next time it will be a more significant one - thus a click.
 
Bits are not just bit though, its the bits between bits that we have to worry about, these anti-bits (only recently discovered as a by product of research at CERN into Antimatter) are the cause for concern, they are a fleeting phenomena that seemingly only appear in digital audio, where they can randomly change to normal bits, but only in a position in a packet of data that corresponds to actual music, rendering control bits unchanged. This is why we get these minor changes in digital audio reproduction and no where else where digital data transmission is involved. A white paper is due early March written by one of CERN's German female physicists Prof. Legsanbrains.








:D
 
Regarding ferrite's and sound change any proof or just anecdotal evidence, gained from sighted listening......

Sighted A/B listening, comparing 1 minute segments of music, repeatedly. It's a pretty clear difference. I have a good ear, it's enough to convince me.

I think the ferrite is knocking down EMI/RFI hash in the USB power supply line (and possibly the data line too), which is probably not changing the actual data, but is getting into the power and/or signal paths of the dac and causing distortion. Without the ferrite, everything has a bit more sizzle and harshness, which can be good at lower volumes, but fatiguing at higher volumes. I'm personally very sensitive to distortion.
 
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I do not see any error correction mechanism in those specifications. A flipped bit will produce audible click or ever ruin the whole frame if in the frame header. Where is the potential for the little yet reoccuring corruption? The LSB can be flipped randomly, but next time it will be a more significant one - thus a click.

I'm still trying to read more about it. While it's clear there's no feedback type of error correction in the USB data transmission, I'm curious how much data correction is done in a USB DAC, either onboard the USB chip itself or in the DAC chip. Optical disc formats use plenty of error correction, but it's not a feedback type.

Here's a discussion of the errors due to inherent physical flaws in optical discs. Make me think of the practice of using markers on the edge of CD's to reduce stray light...I've never tried it, but this makes it sound more plausible.

http://debenedictis.org/erik/Reports-1981/EC-PCM.pdf
 
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I am always cetic in terms of cables interference in the result of the audio response but today I made a test with an audiophile USB cable and changed my mind...
I installed on my iMac with an Epson printer and printed a page of a Reddit conversation and then compared to the same print using a common USB cable. The difference is amazing! The Audiophile cable removed all the nonsense wrote, corrected the grammar, orthography and believe it, make the words more poetical and musical, the ideias just became clearer and all the trolls and hater's comments just disappeared! Yes, a $500 USB cable can really resuscitate a moribund audio system.
 
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