Does it make sense to buy a $150 USB cable when your DAC sold for $300 in 2014

Does it make sense to buy a $150 USB cable when your DAC sold for $300 in 2014

DAC is Musical Fidelity V90
USB cable is Audioquest Carbon
Amp is Rotel 1090
Loudspeakers : Acarian Alon IV
No Pre-amp
Source is Laptop

Another option is the Audioquest Cinnamon at $75

 

Make sense? I usually buy what I want. If I don't like it .. return or sell it.

 

USB is USB, there's no such thing as a high quality/boutique USB cable.

 

Yes there is I see a bunch of them

 

For the OP I buy what I want to and is right for my system

 

I dicked around with Computer audio & USB quite a bit. Something I discovered was that going to a UpTone Audio USB Regen made much more of a difference than the various USB cables I tried. (Kimber, Audioquest, some hi $$ super dooper shielded thing, one that was designed to be noise free in automotive use, the standard Belden's etc.)

It was actually pretty interesting, once I installed the USB Regen, I could not hear any difference in the various cables I used.

I have since moved away from using a laptop and USB.

BTW, Acarian Alon IV, cool speakers!

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

Try it... you might like it

Tripp Lite USB 2.0 with Ferrite Chokes (U023-006)

 

Oh yes they exist, is an expensive one better than a standard cheapo, nope. I don't get into speaker or component cable debates, but USB is a different animal. Don't get me wrong, different USB protocols vary with results, but will a USB 3.1 expensive be any different than a $4 USB 3.1, no. Same thing with HDMI cables; it's been scientifically proven.

 

My opinion: anything above midrange in price, say $20 - $50, will yield no sonic benefit (but might look cool and give you bragging rights). Bottom of the barrel stuff (like a cable from Walgreens or the carwash) can be unreliable.

 

And above $30 may be overkill. To Hajidub’s point, paying a little more buys you reliability, more solid connections and maybe some RF shielding; not much else.

 

Go with Anker, or Amazon Basic USB cables they are well made and cheap. My number one favorite is Anker. Add some snap on ferrite chokes and you are good to go.

https://www.anker.com/products/110/...HufNMON7vc6SIsZ60HIkBXM0VSulFmHEaAnZfEALw_wcB

 

For $300 it did not come with a cable?

 

Only if you can get it for $10 - 20. The going rate for a perfectly functional USB cable for 99% of us.

 

The Anker USB cables are +/- $10 bucks. Anker also makes the very best Lightning cables for any price.

 

I got it used, it did not come with any cables

 

If it is a standard 1m or 2m USB 2.0 A-B cable, I usually grab a handful out of the recycling whenever the IT department at work has a cleanup.

I'm not convinced that the digital domain is the place to be spending lots of money on cables in my system.

 

Almost got caught up buying a super expensive SATA cable once, claimed my MSWord grammar would improve.

 

I always buy the cheapest cables I can find. I will confess that I did have a cable that I use strictly for charging break. It didn't really break, but it charged REALLY slow. I didn't think that could happen but I tested it. Sure enough, though it did charge, it was at around 10% of the charging speed of other cables.

BTW, the exception to my rule is speaker wire. There it is about gauge. I get 16 gauge zip cord, not 24 gauge. When it comes to speaker wire, it's all about gauge.

 

I am a little skeptical with USB cables, but because I use all other quality cables, I dropped the $75 for the Cinnamon for my PC based system to feed the Fubar DAC.