Curious to hear from others: Just wondering what people think /use for their interconnects (as in pc to Dac.)
Does the type and or brand of usb cable matter? example: el cheapo amazon type cable or something like Schiit’s heavy duty usb cable? also when it comes to lets say Digital / optical, Are we also using the same type el cheapo amazon type or stepping up…
If you can hear a difference, then it matters to you. If you can’t hear a difference then it shouldn’t matter to you.
You can spend $5.00 or you can spend $500.00 on a USB cable.
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Believe me I understand your point and we all know the words “snake oil”… Just a matter of curiosity that is about the simplest way of putting it. There is low priced quality as well as low priced junk and there is high priced quality as well as high priced sometimes worse junk.
Noise shielding and the quality of the end points (stress relief ect) When it comes to cables I make, buy or customize mostly to fit whatever whim I happen to be on that day but no $500 dollar USB cables for me.
Actually making your own USB cabling is one of the easier types of cables to make. Easier soldering those ends than a 4 pin mini xlr or 2.5 mm TRS.
I bought a pricier USB cable, but really only because it separated the power and data, had better shielding and isolation, and had beefy stress relief, otherwise just get a decent quality one and you are just fine. But there are some garbage cables out there that will make your setup worse, but most quality cables won’t cost more than 10 bucks
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Those are great allows for linear power and just the USB signal coming from the computer.
Yes, that’s mainly why I went with it, was to isolate the power and data for less noise
Have a bunch of Lindy and ShiverPeaks cables in use. They work 
what brand was that cable? and where did you buy it?
It was a Pangea Premier XL, and I got 2 with some of my dac purchases for free. So not technically bought per se, but I still bought the dacs so technically I paid for it
I would think since the USB cable is just sending digital information to the DAC that it wouldnt matter too much of the quality of cable. Since no audio signal is going through it. As long as no data packets are dropped but i think theres backup procedures for that in the protocol. However there are products like the Audioquest jitterbug for that i guess just to make sure. but some of those products dont work well. Some people swear by it but i doubt theres a difference.
Audio cables might be different. Since an audio signal is going through them. but since its such short legths and its connecting to wires in the headphone i dont think it matters much. Probably want to pay attention to the quality of cables with speakers and longer lengths.
So with usb it’s more noise is the issue, it’s pretty audible when you have a noisy signal, and this also can prevent ground loops. Separating the data and the power will help you control this noise and also prevent ground loops. Also better shielding can again reduce interference and noise. The reason why I use it besides that I got it for “free” is so I can run the power signal from an isolated power supply
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Ah interesting. i didnt think noise and interference could be a thing with usb
It’s the 5v power signal that runs through usb that can be the culprit, most nice dacs will filter this out but it still can have issues. I just had an issue with some noise from my laptop for my main desk setup and this fixed it for sure
This is where I gotta say… Holy sheep shit those are expensive!!! 79.99 to 169.95 is a borderline OUCH!!!
Yeah not something I would recommend lol, you can diy them for way cheaper
A lot of devices you connect to USB have realy shitty internal power filtering. The 5V coming from a computer are not as clean as one would hope.
It makes sense in some applications to either put a powered hub or some other device to inject “known good” power.
Edit: One application apart from audio is EEPROM programming. Can’t have bad power while doing it. But that is what I got my cobbled together USB cable and bench PSU for 
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This particular system , overclocked core i7 with a 3 yr old upper end msi board has pretty good audio but then I added my Asgard 3 with the multibit dac… Have never heard any problems or “noise” at all and I know I understand cables to a point… Quality does not have to cost necessarily… This post was intended to see what others do or use… Education and curiosity was my sole intended purpose and then came @Mon with the “Holy sheep shit” moment !!!.. Ha ha… cracks me up!!