They really will try to flog you anything won't they, the virus has even spread to the computer side of audio, not content with taking you for a ride with analogue interconnects, their attention now conveniently moves with the times and they focus their attention on USB cables and the emperors new clothes start all over again.

Have you seen some of the prices being asked? :evil:

I suggest ignoring them completely, high-end USB

Bonkers innit

I'm not a digiwank fan but surely a cable carries just digits in binary form....how can this be given 'character' by a cable ???
More snake oil methinks !

Let me inject a little insanity here. I actually bought a good quality usb cable to connect a Fubar 2 to my desktop, the other end is plugged into a Copland CSA 14.
The difference in sound was quite apparent with the cheap cable sounding thin and harsh and the good one sounding warmer and smoother.
I wasn't really expecting much of a difference at all and the bloke who sold it to me had said nothing about the sound. When I went back to the shop to actually pay for it he just smiled and said that that is what he heard as well.

will someone please explain how the hell a cable carrying date changes the sound. In effect it is changing the data to change the sound, therefore everytime you sent something down a USB cable to a external hard drive the data would be corrupt when you used a file. as in my spreadsheets are so much more colourful with this USB cable.

A good USB cable is normally shielded so that is very likely the main reason for a difference. There is, apparently, also a chance that a cheaply terminated cable will cause reflections between the plugs which could cause problems. I really couldn't say for definite but data does occasionally get corrupted and there are plenty of other things which can affect data in and around computers.

without wanting to start a cable war, I shift a fair amount of data around a network, on cat 5, then usb. I have not yet had anything corrupt in transmission. I have had corrupt files, usually to do with a failing HDD.

If a better USB can stop this, it may well mean one back up would do instead of my usual 2 or 3, (to be safe- I dont trust computers to be safe and secure). I will have a look around the computer groups and see if any of the better informed people can put me straight on this.

Colin, let us know what you can find out, I'm always interested to hear other views on this sort of thing.

all I can get back is shielding, if comparing well shielded to poorly or not. I have not yet had any one suggest that you can get a improvement in the data that is being carried. Most of the replies verge on, err, taking the p***.

I guess urine extraction is what we would have to expect from most people. I suppose I was hoping some body would come up with something new. Shielding probably keeps the noise down to manageable levels, maybe nobody noticed the noise until we started converting the data into reasonably high quality music.

one guy asked if the cables where of differing lengths-

The cables were the same length