Anyone Compared Chord Signature Tuned Array USB to Wireworld Ultraviolet

Just read a review on Hi-fi News and apparently the guys found the £55 Chord SilverPlus to sound better than the £400 Signature TA. 

"UNEXPECTED WINNER
Chord’s flagship Signature Tuned Aray cable sounds richly detailed and very expressive and while on first exposure it may seem to lack some ‘bite’, in practice there’s no lack of colour or contrast to its richly hued performance. The timpani from Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic
Dances enjoyed a thunderous energy and strings thrilled just as the percussion sparkled in the depths of the soundstage. Vocals had a wonderfully breathy quality too, but was this necessarily the best ‘in the round’ USB cable we’d heard?
Returning to Chord’s own USB SilverPlus (last year’s winner) suggested not, for this latter cable – still a current item at just £55/1.5m – was arguably better integrated still, detailed, insightful and inherently musical. The USB standard has not changed and, quite frankly, neither has our choice o favourite USB cable."

Doesn't look too promising for the Chord Signature TA. Does anyone here own the Signature TA USB ?

 I am looking to purchase a 3.0m length of the £600 Signature TA USB and would appreciate some advice.

Hi Ryder

what are you buying this for? Is this for the QBD 76?

What is going to feed the QBD?

Hi Analogmusic,

Yes, it is for the QBD 76. As a matter of fact, both cables Chord Signature TA RCA to 5 pin DIN and USB are for the QBD 76. I want to maximise the performance of the system (although it sounds pretty wonderful now). My only worry is the USB cable may not bring much improvement or difference to the system. 

The Signature TA RCA to 5 pin DIN is confirmed. It is this USB cable now that I'm not too sure. 

There are two sources feeding the QBD 76. One is the Krell CD player. The other source is a laptop. The USB cable will connect the laptop to the QBD 76. The Krell is connected to the QBD via an XLO Signature digital cable AES/EBU.

well I don't think the ultraviolet cable is bad by any means, it is the same cable that ships with the audiophilleo (highly regarded) USB to SPDIF. Phil (CEO of audiophileo) says that cable is capable of bit perfect audio at USB 2.0 speeds. I do trust Phil, his audiophilleo is top class engineering, well perfectionists like Naim think so too, as they use it in the DAC V1.

More important than USB cable is the source itself, if it is laptop then various tweaks have to be made, like using Jriver with the Chord ASIO or Wasapi driver, ensuring bit perfect data to the QBD.

The thing to understand is that USB Isosynchonous is not error correcting, the data is too fast for that. so you are at the mercy of the laptop, and the USB cable, and also the software, the laptop ground leaking current into the USB unless it is on battery.

Many people think NDX or Uniti core is an over expensive source, but in fact it is optimised for audio and is a good source into a QBD76 or Hugo. The SPDIF outputs are galvanically isolated, that is the key issue to avoid ground currents leaking in your DAC. Unless the DAC gets bit perfect data, your investment in a Chord QBD  (and your 282/250) is wasted, you will not hear all the music and it will always sound suboptimal.

The best upgrade you could do now is to install Jriver for windows, select WASAPI driver, (this is also available for Tidal), and then also run the laptop on battery !

I have no experience with Chord or the wireworld cable, but with my DAVE, the vertere DFI USB cable was much superior to the stock USB cable that comes with the DAVE, but then I was not using the WASAPI or ASIO drivers. Not sure if I would hear any difference now. Using WASAPI with Tidal gave a big boost in sound quality with the stock cable so I didn't bother to try other cables after that.

Thanks for the response Analogmusic. I am pretty clueless with the various tweaks such as jriver. It may be a better idea to skip the USB cable at this point of time until I sort out the fundamentals with audio softwares.

I have Foobar installed and use this player to play music with the laptop. I have previously used Jriver but I prefer the interface of the Foobar better.

Hi Ryder - I've had the Silver Plus and now have the Signature TA USB. Both excellent cables. I see your source is a laptop so i'd look at this rather than a USB cable if you want a big improvement. Apart from using decent music players on the laptop as Analog mentions, consider something like the Intona USB isolator which works well with a USB source or even better, a dedicated player such as the Melco. 

James

Some people reported good results with Audiophilleo USB/PSDIF into a Chord DAC 64.... as it has full electrical galvanic isolation.

with foobar you can install the Chord ASIO driver or a WASAPI driver, it is there if you search FOOBAR ASIO or FOOBAR WASAPI on google

I will investigate J River. Haven't tried Wasapi before. Will need to study on this. Thanks.

WASAPI is a windows software technology that allows data to bypass Windows Mixer and go direct to the DAC.

Basically both WASAPI and ASIO allow the music to go from software player direct to the USB DAC, otherwise it does through windows K mixer, and it may not be bitperfect anymore

Hi James, thanks for the post. I will skip the Signature TA USB and just get the RCA to DIN. It is good that I have saved myself some money. :-)

you might want to buy those later, after you hear what is possible with the laptop optimised properly.

I have this thread with interest. I am not a nay sayer when it comes to cables as you can from my profile. However my main source nowadays is a Mac Mini running Audivarna+ linked to a TPardo asynchronous DAC into 552 via Superlumina Din to Din. It all sounds awesome to me.

The USB cable linking the Mac to the Dac is one that I found and probably costs about 50p. Should I too be looking for a better cable?

Hi Elkman

with a system like yours, you need a better USB cable

It doesn't matter for copying files to your hard drive or printer, since these are not high speed real time transmissions, and the bulk method of USB transfer is used. 

A bulk transfer is used to reliably transfer data between host and device. All USB transfers carry a CRC (checksum) that indicates whether an error has occurred. On a bulk transfer, the receiver of the data has to verify the CRC. If the CRC is correct the transfer is acknowledged, and the data is assumed to have been transferred error-free. If the CRC is not correct, the transfer is not acknowledged and will be retried. If the device is not ready to accept data it can send a negative-acknowledgment, NAK, which will cause the host to retry the transfer. Bulk transfers are not considered time criticial, and are scheduled around the time critical transfers discussed below.

However, audio and video are real time transfers and from the XMOS website "Isochronous transfers are used to transfer data in real-time between host and device. When an isochronous endpoint is set up by the host, the host allocates a specific amount of bandwidth to the isochronous endpoint, and it regularly performs an IN- or OUT-transfer on that endpoint. For example, the host may OUT 1 KByte of data every 125µs to the device. Since a fixed and limited amount of bandwidth has been allocated, there is no time to resend data if anything goes wrong. The data has a CRC as normal, but if the receiving side detects an error there is no resend mechanism."

So you have to buy a pretty good USB cable to ensure your expensive USB DAC will get the data bit perfect.

Hi Analogmusic,

Thank you for the comprehensive response. I think I sort of understand. When buying a good USB cable, how do you know if the cable addresses the CRC issues you describe and, what would be a good cable to go for?

Elkman - i not get too hung up about USB cables and bit perfect transmission. Unless it's some very cheap knock off cable then any off the shelf USB cable should meet the USB spec and just work (as you've already found with your present cable...). You be noticing clicks and pops in your music if there were problems. 

Audiophile USB cables change the construction slightly to separate out the power, ground and data cables to try and minimise the coupling of noise from the host computer into the DAC. This is where the main difference between USB cables comes in and why they sound 'different'. I wouldn't go OTT with the USB cable as money would be better spent on the source but a decent cable for not a lot of money is the Chord Silver Plus USB cable. 

James

ryder. posted:

..

 I am looking to purchase a 3.0m length of the £600 Signature TA USB and would appreciate some advice.

If you have that kind of money to spend, why not look at the Sonore microRendu  product? It will most likely be a nice upgrade to the laptop (assuming it is a regular Win 10 type laptop). You could use a program like J River to stream to it. There are a few threads here discussing the unit, most currently:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...he-hugo-of-streaming

If interested there is more info on the computeraudiophile forum.

As for the standard affordable USB cables, I personally liked the Belkin Gold series over the Chord Silver Plus and Supra USB 2 while using a laptop/DAC-V1 setup. Others to look at : C2G Ultima & the Tripp Lite offerings, all good quality and all on Amazon.

B.

analogmusic posted:

 Phil (CEO of audiophileo) says that cable is capable of bit perfect audio at USB 2.0 speeds. I do trust Phil, his audiophilleo is top class engineering, well perfectionists like Naim think so too, as they use it in the DAC V1.

 

Frankly a piece of wet string can do bit perfect audio on USB 2

and does naim really use this cable????

I never said Naim uses this cable, the audiophilleo USB SPDIF device ships with this cable. 

a piece of wet string may do bit perfect data, but only if it has 90 Ohm impedance and the connectors are 90 Ohm too. Those who want to know more can google Gordon Rankin interviews on why USB cables sound different.... and Since he invented asynchronous USB...... 

Anyway to my ears the Vertere USB DFI cable easily beats the stock cable that ships with the Chord Dave.

Just installed Asio support on Foobar. Surprisingly the install just takes several seconds and it's all done within a minute.

Foobar is now running with Asio support (on Windows 10) and after some listening sessions, I am glad to report that there is an improvement in sound quality. Vocals sound smoother without digital glare or hardness, and the bass quality is better - sounds tauter and fuller. Unfortunately there is no option to disable Asio on Foobar as it's now permanently installed on the player. Otherwise I could compare running with and without Asio to confirm on the differences. Having said that, I am convinced that music now sounds better, more coherent and balanced with Asio support added onto Foobar.

I should have done the install earlier but it's better late than never.

Brilliant posted:

If you have that kind of money to spend, why not look at the Sonore microRendu  product? It will most likely be a nice upgrade to the laptop (assuming it is a regular Win 10 type laptop). You could use a program like J River to stream to it. There are a few threads here discussing the unit, most currently:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...he-hugo-of-streaming

If interested there is more info on the computeraudiophile forum.

As for the standard affordable USB cables, I personally liked the Belkin Gold series over the Chord Silver Plus and Supra USB 2 while using a laptop/DAC-V1 setup. Others to look at : C2G Ultima & the Tripp Lite offerings, all good quality and all on Amazon.

B.

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, the laptop is on Windows 10. I'm not too keen on adding more components and trying to keep it simple. There is an earlier suggestion on a Melco player though it's too much for my budget at the moment. My computer setup is working fine and I am just trying to optimise it without spending too much money.

I'll be getting the Chord Signature TA RCA to 5-pin DIN sometime next week. Still on the fence with a better USB cable such as the Chord Signature TA or SilverPlus. If I am getting the Chord USB it will ship together with the RCA to 5-pin DIN.

you can go to file-->preferences-->playback-->output---> asio 

then you can dropdown the asio driver or windows drivers to hear what asio does.

analogmusic posted:

you can go to file-->preferences-->playback-->output---> asio 

then you can dropdown the asio driver or windows drivers to hear what asio does.

 

Thanks for that. Just did a comparison switching back and forth between "ASIO - ASIO4ALL V2" and "DS : Primary Sound Driver" for about 1 hour. Did not perceive any major difference in sound quality. As a matter of fact music sounded almost the same in both settings.

An interesting observation is the sample rate of the FLAC files of one of my albums (Pat Metheny's The Falcon and the Snowman) is 96 kHz as the Chord QBD76 keeps switching to 48kHz when playing the files. With other FLAC files the QBD76 switches to 41kHz which matches the sample rate of the files.

Perhaps I'll just get the RCA to 5-pin DIN of the Chord Signature TA and call it a day. Will stick to the Wireworld Ultraviolet USB. I seriously hope this cable would be an improvement to the current Flashback cable that I have.

Thanks for all the advice which have proven to be useful.