Still following along here but with the swing towards in-depth wire & mac discussion, I don’t have much to share (and I even use a different DAC!
). My experience with the Concero HD is limited to a few generic USB cables, one highly regarded (FWIW) USB cable - Wireworld Starlight 7 - and various DAC to pre-amp interconnects.
My approach is quite different from what I’m reading here but our end game seems to be the same. Streaming (all) digital files as DSD128 to a good DSD DAC has elevated digital to the point where it’s knocking on the performance door of my turntable and sometimes, surpassing it. The cool part is that it’s at a price point about 1/6 of what I have in vinyl playback, I am using cheaper, easier to obtain media and it is way more user-friendly & convenient.
If I try to quantify the improvements I’ve realized over the last few years with digital though, wire goes way down at the bottom of the list and I just confirmed that over the last few weeks by living without the Wireworld USB cable (I loaned it out for another opinion). Yes, I think I lost a little of the black background I had where instruments and vocals seemed to stand-out with a touch more clarity and detail but the effect is damn subtle to me – worth the $100 that cable costs but I’d want to carefully audition anything higher up the food chain. I just think there are better ways to spend your $ here, at least based on what I’ve heard so far.
The BIG payoff – that decent DSD DAC & feeding it well with DSD128 - and there are other options besides iFi (although I can’t think of any I’d consider at $500). Next on my list would be software (assuming a capable streaming machine) and IMO there is one piece that stands out from an outright sound perspective and it’s absolutely worth all of its $200 price tag.
Next would be separating & isolating the noisy (electrically & physically) hi performance player pc from the streaming appliance and getting the noise out of the room. There are certainly cheaper ways to do this but I like proven and simple so I bought a SOtM SMS-100 mini server to go next to the DAC which comes pre-loaded with (and works beautifully with) my chosen software - $450.
Then I would worry about the power supply feeding that low price DAC or in my case – both the streamer and DAC. DAC power supplies are where I think a lot of the money goes as you move up in price and the iFi is pretty cool in that the $200 iUSB supply is affordable and even has the option of being fed by another outboard linear – something that might be interesting to experiment with.
Now that I’ve spent $1350 (if using the iFi products), I might think about a little icing on the cake – wires. My personal limit is pretty low here before I’d go back through all the above; I just think my limited budget gets better mileage elsewhere. I believe much of the wire ‘advantages’ are aimed at trying to chip away at some of the stuff addressed (more effectively?) above like better USB interfaces, galvanic isolation, cleaner power transmission, etc.
But who knows, I may hear a cable that proves otherwise so I’m all ears – that’s how I got on this DSD train in the first place.
I bought the Micro iDSD, Micro iUSBPower, Gemini, and and Audioquest Cinnamon USB. I loved it so much so quickly that I sent it all out to AVC (Audiophile Vibration Control) to design and build a better rack system to anchor the iFi goodness into my 2 channel system. After a number of design/drawing iterations, prototyping, and testing - production has begun 
