oscroft
Prominent Member
Here's a topic that generates polarized opinions - USB noise, and its possible effect on audio. It came to mind because of this YouTube...
The guy's an audio engineer, and I tend to trust people like that as hopefully being a bit more objective. Obviously you can't tell by listening to comparisons over the audio horror that is YouTube (and I'm still amazed by the number of people who present their comparisons as YT videos and expect us to be able to hear them). But he captured test files in .wav format, so I downloaded those to try.
First problem - it's obvious from the file names which is which. So I sent them to a friend and asked him to make me 10 copies (some, not necessarily five, of each) with file names I can't guess. He used a random name generator, and sent me 10 files. I loaded them up in Vox, the music player I use on my dedicated Mac Mini, and set it to shuffle mode. I sat and listened to all 10, then I did the same again to get a different shuffle sequence. And I couldn't hear any difference.
While this was going on, I'd ordered a cheap "USB to USB Isolator Board Audio Noise Eliminator Industrial Isolator Protection" from a Chinese eBay seller - I won't pay £120 for the iFi thing to test, but £14.50 (inc postage) is fine. That arrived a few days ago, I inserted it between the Mac and my Audiolab M-DAC... and I swear it sounds better!
So, a real effect or a placebo? I have no realistic way to test blind, so I really can't say. But I thought I'd offer it for discussion/entertainment anyway, partly in case anyone else wants to try those iFi Purifier test files.
The guy's an audio engineer, and I tend to trust people like that as hopefully being a bit more objective. Obviously you can't tell by listening to comparisons over the audio horror that is YouTube (and I'm still amazed by the number of people who present their comparisons as YT videos and expect us to be able to hear them). But he captured test files in .wav format, so I downloaded those to try.
First problem - it's obvious from the file names which is which. So I sent them to a friend and asked him to make me 10 copies (some, not necessarily five, of each) with file names I can't guess. He used a random name generator, and sent me 10 files. I loaded them up in Vox, the music player I use on my dedicated Mac Mini, and set it to shuffle mode. I sat and listened to all 10, then I did the same again to get a different shuffle sequence. And I couldn't hear any difference.
While this was going on, I'd ordered a cheap "USB to USB Isolator Board Audio Noise Eliminator Industrial Isolator Protection" from a Chinese eBay seller - I won't pay £120 for the iFi thing to test, but £14.50 (inc postage) is fine. That arrived a few days ago, I inserted it between the Mac and my Audiolab M-DAC... and I swear it sounds better!
So, a real effect or a placebo? I have no realistic way to test blind, so I really can't say. But I thought I'd offer it for discussion/entertainment anyway, partly in case anyone else wants to try those iFi Purifier test files.