USB Type A to Type B cables

Hi-Fi Corner
1

I am currently using a 5m USB to A to type B printer cable between my Dell laptop and my Arcam D33 DAC. Has anyone any experience of either of the following cables as a sensibly priced upgrade?

Atlas Elements SC 1.5m or 2m version - priced between £54 - £60 approx - Scottish.
or
Supra Cables USB 2m version. This seems to retail at circa £44. Swedish.

They both get good reviews and if nothing else, will be shorter than the coiled up printer cable that I have at the moment. I will also be able to use that cable again for my printer…

I don’t want to spend anymore than this really.

Regards
Alex

2

No experience of those ones specifically but I had a D33 dac at one point and used a chord cable. It was quite cheap at about £50ish. I enjoyed it…

I now use a QED £70ish cable between my server and CD ripper. Seems good to me.

3

I have a purple wireworld not sure of model name was about£50 and a black rhodium again unsure of name (was £200ish) which is very good and currently sits between dell pc and Naim DAC V1 and gives excellent results.

Hope that helps

4

Many thanks for the replies. At the price I think it’s worth a shot for either option.

I just need to decide which one. Having said that, I use a Chord Din to RCA and a Van Den Hul the Bay RCA to RCA between my CD5si and Arcam amplifier and I prefer the Van Den Hul, which IIRC has some silver content. The Atlas also seems to have silver content so perhaps that might be the way to go?

5

Yes - Van Den Hul stuff is good too although it has slipped off the radar a little bit these days - Simon (not me) at Hi-Fi Sound in Stockton has a good selection I believe - nice chap - I’m sure he’d be able to help.

6

I did just look up VDH but the only USB cable I could see straight away was about £300 unfortunately.

I have ordered the Atlas Elements SC USB as a 2.0 metre cable. Will see how I get on.

Many thanks.

Alex

7

Gud on yer - let me know how it sounds - always on the look out for different cable recommendations!

1 Like
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An update on this. To my ears it was a worthwhile purchase.

Stereo imaging/placement appears more stable, the stage appears a little bigger/a bit deeper and the sound is more certainly more refined/defined/textured with less digital ‘glare’ than before. Perhaps some music lacks a bit of bite compared with the printer cable but the gains elsewhere are a good trade off.

9

Hi Alex,

I’m a bit late coming in here and I realise you’ve already made your purchase. I use a Chord C Line USB cable which is excellent. It certainly doesn’t lack any bite or dynamics and doesn’t have any digital glare. Previously I used a Lindy cable from Amazon (around £5 I think) that was also excellent. Apparently this cable is supplied by a high-end DAC manufacturer with their DACs and they recommend it’s use. It was not as dynamic as the Chord but gave a very analogue type of sound. I think it is called the Lindy Red or Red/`Black. If you’re interested in trying it just make sure you order the original type -ie. black cable with red collars adjacent to the plugs. They seem to have updated it with another type where the cable is grey. Don’t know how this performs.

1 Like
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