The worlds most expensive USB cable (yes...for audiophiles)

[FrankenPC]

This is a good one.

It starts here with a blog entry about a new £480 USB cable:
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/129399-meet-the-480-usb-cable-from-computer-audio-design-an-audiophile-s-dac-dream

That leads me to a company called Computer Audio Design (CAD):
http://www.computeraudiodesign.com/cad-cable/
No real meat there.  Just suggested awesomeness.

A link to a audiophiles website from CAD:
http://the-ear-net.blogspot.fr/2012/11/cad-cable-controversy.html

With this incredible declaration:

The change from the best USB cable I have found to date was nothing short of staggering.
How come? Scott won't say what he's done save that it's not about the materials and that he has applied for a patent to protect his discovery. So it must be something unusual. I've heard quite a few well regarded USB cables and there are always tangible differences but nothing has come close to transforming the result like this.
The level of resolution it brings to the picture is extraordinary, I am hearing things that no other system has suggested were there. Most obviously in terms of note decay and acoustic space - the air of the recording environment - but fundamentally across the board.

[Richard Crowley]

These people are simply pathological.  They live in a completely separate universe where the same rules of physics and even logic simply don't apply to them.
This is the definitive example for the coining of the term "audiophool".

[grumpydoc]

This is a world where you can get gold and rhodium plated mains plugs because they "sound better" so what do you expect 

Although at £25 for the rhodium plated version it's almost a bargain 

[G7PSK]

This is a world where you can get gold and rhodium plated mains plugs because they "sound better" so what do you expect 

Although at £25 for the rhodium plated version it's almost a bargain 

I like the standard MK branded plug treated with De-OXit and priced at £6-00 only. 

For that money I could get my own bottle of cleaner and polish the plug on the end of the cable I would need too as it would need polishing every time it was plunged into the dirty socket.
Should I market my gold plated polishing stick for cleaning the socket contacts.
Or the electron sieve as graded electrons make finer sound.

[mcinque]

oh god, this is really fun!!  I can't believe so much ignorance. Not even for an illiterate. More of this, PLEASE! 

[dannyf]

It is their money so they can spend it however  they like.

[abaxas]

No harm in a nice cable.

[rob77]

ROFLMAO 

it must be the best deal ever - it's just 1 GBP per 1Mbps 

"And it's so confident that it's touting a 30-day money-back guarantee for anyone that isn't impressed."  of course those guys buying this will be impressed - Placebo effect is much much stronger than common sense

[madires]

It's not the placebo effect, it's called cognitive dissonance. If you buy a USB cable 100 times more expensive than the common one and your brain realises that, it tries to compensate the discomfort of the bad decision and makes you believe that the sound via the expensive cable is better.

[mcinque]

Placebo effect is much much stronger than common sense

The more they spend, the better the sound will be (at least, their perception of it).

It is their money so they can spend it however  they like.

Certainly. But they cannot state that with that "high-end" cables the sound is better.

[dannyf]

their perception of it

Perception is all it matters.

What good does "good sound" do if you cannot / don't perceive it as good?

[andtfoot]

Nope... not the most expensive. 

The most expensive I've seen so far is the "Chord Sarum tune ARAY' at £750 for 1m.
http://www.chord.co.uk/product/chord-sarum-usb-tuned-aray-digital-interconnect-type-a-to-type-b/

At the bottom of this page for the price.
http://www.decoaudio.com/deco_audio_usb.html

I'm not even going to copy-paste the justification for the price, or the 'reviews', for fear of my brain exploding.


That's peanuts though compared to some of the analogue interconnects I've seen floating around... £3700 for 1m Nordost Valhalla RCA cables anyone? How about £5000 for 1m of unterminated AN-Sogon LX96 speaker cable? 

[rob77]

actually one could make his living on this buying really high quality USB cables with gold plated connectors for something line 30Euro each and slip them into white cable cover + 2 pieces of white glossy heat shrink tubing.... hm..... call it MegaSauron-UltraChorus 3000 and .... profit !!!!   

[c4757p]

It is their money so they can spend it however  they like.

I'm not sure anyone claimed they couldn't.

[mcinque]

At the bottom of this page for the price.
http://www.decoaudio.com/deco_audio_usb.html[/url

"a wonderfully textured midband"
"instruments easier to place in all three dimensions"
"The scale of soundstage is also very impressive"

I wonder why noone can do a simple "double blind" hearing test between this snake poison items and standard cheap cables...

[FrankenPC]

These people aren't audiophiles, they're digidiots.  Clearly they have no idea how digital works.

[dannyf]

"double blind" hearing test

That's too scientific.

Things like "audiophile cables", or global warming, are faith-based products: it is true if you believe it to be true. Contravening facts don't exist. Logic reasoning and critical thinking shall not apply. Appeal to authority is paramount...

[GreyWoolfe]

I doubt that anyone would agree to a double blind test.  They wouldn't want to be made an (audio)phool of.

[quote: I wonder why noone can do a simple "double blind" hearing test between this snake poison items and standard cheap cables...
[/quote]

Anyway, if they have the disposable income to waste on this nonsense, let them if it makes them happy.  I know if I had the disposable income to buy a $50,000 scope that I wouldn't/couldn't use a tenth of its' function, I would still do it if it would make me happy.

[mcinque]

I know if I had the disposable income to buy a $50,000 scope that I wouldn't/couldn't use a tenth of its' function, I would still do it if it would make me happy.

The same for me! But it's a little bit different: in the audio foolery they promise terrific audio improvements without any comparison tests. They rely only on the perception of the user.

A million dollar DSO can't promise you that you'll see detailed waveforms never seen before without detailed specs about its performance.
And of course if you purchase it,  it will not operate like an usual, tradional 50 MHz bandwith scope.

It's not ethical to sell this kind of products, it's the same principle that is used with homeopathy.

[dannyf]

But it's a little bit different:

The difference is quite small actually.

in the audio foolery they promise terrific audio improvements without any comparison tests. They rely only on the perception of the user.

[/quote]

What if the best measurement of audio improvement is indeed human hearing?

Going back to your scope example, what if someone tells you that this new super-duper scope has really impressive specs that goes way beyond what a human perception could possibly detect. Or what you could possibly use.

Is it still worth its billion dollar price tag?

[c4757p]

Going back to your scope example, what if someone tells you that this new super-duper scope has really impressive specs that goes way beyond what a human perception could possibly detect. Or what you could possibly use.

Is it still worth its billion dollar price tag?

The difference is that the scope actually has functionality beyond a lower-end scope. I strongly suspect you know enough about electricity to realize that any claims about this cable being any different from any other are horseshit. You're just being obtuse. Whether or not an individual can make use of the oscilloscope does not change the fact that it actually does things that another does not. Anyone trying to sell something like this cable on the basis that it sounds better is lying to defraud the less knowledgeable.

Now, if someone has the money, and wants the cable for another reason (it looks good to them, whatever) that's fine. There are definitely things I don't need that I would buy if I had the spare change. But if they think it will actually perform better, they're rather dull, and if someone tells them that to convince them to buy it, that person is a jackass.

[mcinque]

What if the best measurement of audio improvement is indeed human hearing?

The fact that someone hears (or feels) something doesn't mean that is real. For example some people swear to hear ghosts talking or see UFOs in the sky.
Our perception is always influenced by a state of mind. Like in any medical research, you cannot start from what you are expecting to find, otherwise you'll find what you're expecting. This is why many double blind tests on drugs shows impressive results: many patients have an improvement in their disease even if they are in the group of placebo, so they are taking sugar, basically. But the fact they BELIEVE to assume a drug change their state of mind, with terrific results: they expect to feel better and in most cases (50%) it works.

what if someone tells you that this new super-duper scope has really impressive specs that goes way beyond what a human perception could possibly detect.

Oh, they should explain me for who they've designed that oscilloscope...

[mcinque]

What if the best measurement of audio improvement is indeed human hearing?

The fact that someone hears (or feels) something doesn't mean that is real. For example some people swear to hear ghosts talking or see UFOs in the sky.
Our perception is always influenced by a state of mind. Like in any medical research, you cannot start from what you are expecting to find, otherwise you'll find what you're expecting. This is why many double blind tests on drugs shows impressive results: many patients have an improvement in their disease even if they are in the group of placebo, so they are taking sugar, basically. But the fact they BELIEVE to assume a drug change their state of mind, with terrific results: they expect to feel better and in most cases (50%) it works.

what if someone tells you that this new super-duper scope has really impressive specs that goes way beyond what a human perception could possibly detect.

Oh, they should explain me for who they've designed that oscilloscope...

Now, if someone has the money, and wants the cable for another reason (it looks good to them, whatever) that's fine. There are definitely things I don't need that I would buy if I had the spare change. But if they think it will actually perform better, they're rather dull, and if someone tells them that to convince them to buy it, that person is a jackass.

totally agree 

[dannyf]

The fact that someone hears (or feels) something doesn't mean that is real.

Two points:

1) Why do you care if it is real or not. If you perceive an improvement, does it matter if there is no improvement? If voodoo cures your illness, do you insist on going back to sickness?

2) The fact that you cannot measure a difference doesn't bean there is no difference. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

End of the day, it is an arm's length transaction. As long as the buyer is happy, who are we so worked up about it?

[Richard Crowley]

their perception of it

Perception is all it matters.

NO, that is not true. It is not "perception" we are talking about here it is blind faith. The "Placebo Effect" if you will.

If it were truly "perception", then the believers would submit to a double-blind test to prove their "perception".
But they perpetually reject any and all objective tests as "irrelevant" or "immaterial".
That is why I accused them of being from another universe where the same natural laws don't apply.

(Of course, the reason they reject any kind of objective test is because they fail every time, proving their theory completely false.)