CuBox Project X

[Antoine]

Antoine, and others who may chip in...

This is your posting on the USB thread a while back...

Have you tried powering the USB cable with an external battery supply? You have to use a split USB cable in this case of course, but is this effort worth pursuing?

I have very little experience on USB cables and would like to get the best out of this little box...

Thanks..

Kunter

Correct, and I even contacted Devialet regarding the need for +5V. This is part of the response, and of course I don't buy into it for the full 100%.

EDIT 11-9-2014: The devialets don't need the +5V active, they need the USB ground connection active

Regarding the +5V power leads in the USB cable, there are no particular recommandations. If some high-end USB DAC allows this feature, the Devialet is working perfectly with a traditional USB connection, you won't hear "dirty PC” USB power, don't worry.

To this day I have focused most on my PC based music server that is connected directly to the Devialet though ethernet so I haven't tried powering the USB cable with an external battery supply. Yesterday I found out my music server PC can run in Windows 2012 R2 Core mode and support the Devialet USB input. As such I am planning to look into USB more when I find that it sounds better than ethernet (have to listen more first).

Indeed there are Y splitter cables available like the iFi Gemini dual headed USB cable that allow you to separate USB power and data.

General consensus on the Computeraudiophile and JPlay forums for PC based music servers seems to be that it's better to use a JCat, PPA Audio or SoTm USB interface card. These are audiophile plugin PCIe cards that can be powered by an external 5V power source (linear or battery) as well. The iFi iUSB power (http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/micro-iusbpower/) isn't really favoured here as are battery supplies. Most people use a linear PSU.

Of course we can't use such a card for the Cubox so would have to look at a solution like iFi offers but there are other companies, like Kingrex, that offer similar products as well. Biggest question for me is will a Y-cable provide a better sound quality than a generally favoured 'regular' USB cable in combination with the Cubox. It seems not a lot of people have experimented with the Cubox yet so we might have to this ourselves. "Problem" for me is that I -really- dislike comparing cables, I generally let others do that and try to benefit from their experience.