REVIEW: Mad Scientist Audio Black Magic USB Cable Cable

Model:	Black Magic USB Cable
Category:	Cable
Suggested Retail Price:	$399
Description:	a new generation of USB cable
Manufacturer URL:	Mad Scientist Audio
Model Picture:	View

Review by paco on August 28, 2018 at 23:01:12
IP Address: 46.222.215.101 Add Your Review
for the Black Magic USB Cable

TECHNICAL INFO

According to the Mad Scientist Audio site, this cable offers four main technical advances:

Asymmetrical construction: the two wires of the data leg are not symmetrical, as is usually the case in USB
cables. The materials used are not so relevant: you don't need so pure, expensive silver, and the like. The
whole design allows much higher data rates than the ones used in USB Audio. Finally, now there is no need to
totally separate the 5V leg from the data leg, as in the Shotgun model.

I asked Bob Prangnel to somehow expand that info and he was so kind as to send me a long answer, from where
i'll quote just this:

"... it's always a problem deciding what to say about a product. And watching them trying to guess (which
they were hopeless at btw) makes me not want to say very much more. It's like the things I say about it are
almost incidental, but maybe interesting design features. But I am purposely not revealing the main secrets of BM
- I'm talking around them... OK so:

Black Magic, like my other digital cables, does not conform to the USB spec. It uses the latitude that real
devices have to push the boundaries in certain directions. One thing it does is prioritize the traffic so that
the DAC sees the "nicest, easiest to digest" signal, while the computer end has gets 'leftovers' (The words
in quotes are to indicate not to take these terms too literally...). BM uses cable that will work at much
faster speeds than USB audio uses, so again we burn some of the margin here to improve noise performance. Regarding
the 5V line. Firstly, I don't think that the 5V line is the big issue that many think it is. One reason why
removing the 5V line typically doesn't make a huge difference is that much of the PSU noise is common mode.
Removing just the 5V line can change the noise profile, but doesn't necessarily make it better. I hope this
helps!"."

FIRST IMPRESSION
After receiving the new cable, I connected it from computer to DAC, put some music and left it working all night, without listening at all; the next morning, the question was: how does it sound? Well, I was listening just for 1 hour, but I could answer in an indirect way: this is going to be a difficult review... why? because now I enjoy so much the music, all music, that it is very difficult to change track!!... :)
More seriously: I noticed a big improvement in PRESENCE of the music, DIRECT contact with it, and a soooo IMMEDIATE emotional engagement.

The rest of this review is just a development of this first impression. To organize the material, i'll follow my notes, which were taken along the breaking in period, until 300 hours.

50 HOURS
The sound is not easy to describe in usual audiophile terms, so i'll try other ways... the effect of this cable is totally different from all I've tried before, either cables, DACs, whatever... it's not just that the sound is soooooo good; rather, it's the fact that it totally transforms every track into MUSIC, directly, so everything else disappears! no player, no DAC, no cables, no preamp, no amps, no speakers; even no ears!: you're in DIRECT touch with the music, which involves you totally, so that instead of hearing it you FEEL it.

I'm well familiar with piano live and also with chamber music live, even into a home room, in a way that you're almost touching the musicians. In this way you get total separation of the instruments, BUT at the same time you delve deep into the WHOLE music, which is not fractured into pieces, but goes like an arrow, directly to your brain, or your heart, say it as you want. Well, believe it or not, THIS is exactly what this cable gets with my system!!

Is it "bloom"? Well, you can use that word, as long as you do not confuse it with the sound offered by some tube systems, which somehow hide digital sound by creating artificial harmonic distortions which may sound "nice" to your ears, but at a price: totally deformating the real music containing in the recording. Here the bloom is contained in the recording, not in the system!

100 HOURS
OK, let's use audiophile talk too... the most striking things i notice now:

Volume, volume, volume evywhere! All sign of flatness dissapeared! Every sound image has structure, texture, not only chords, but even individual sounds from instrumental music; if chamber music, this is an orgy of structure! that's why voices sound soooo rich; translating into autiophile jargon: a lot of low level detail; attacks are brutal, decays are sooooooo long... they seem never to finish; the sound of a single piano key, let alone a chord, has deep texture; now imagine a quartet, a jazz band, let alone a big symphonic orquestra.

Room, room, room almost everywhere!! A lot of info about room: voices, instruments are in a spatial location: you can almost see that location; in terms of soundstage this can be translated like this: soundstage extremely big: especially very, very tall, which is very difficult to get! Also: soundstage from wall to wall all the time (if this is in the recording, of course); even at times, if you close your eyes, even BEYOND WALLS! and since you hear the room, the depth is impressive, very impressive.

150 HOURS
Indeed, this does not mean this cable converts any recording into a good recording: there are still good and bad recordings, of course; yet any recording sound like music, real music, at once; my favourite old recording of Bill Coleman, Louis Amstrong, Dinah Washington, Django Reinhart, etc., sound all very enjoyable.

Also, this does not mean that this cable sounds euphonic! Euphony means to manipulate the recording, in a tricky way, to make it to sound "better", but in an artificial manner! Everything is always natural, pure music.

(BTW, euphony is what you may get with the present fashion of upsampling all signal to DSD then play them, IMHO. I've been using Audirvana Plus in a non upsampling way, then sendin the 16/44 signal to my Audio GD R2R 2 DAC, which I use in a NOS -non oversampling way.)

Finally, about detail; with this cable you get ALL details present in the recording, so you can stop worrying abut detail! it's like with live music: when attending a live concert you never ask about how much detail you get! it's all there at once!!

My last two USB cables were: Acoustic Revive 1.0SP USB-1.0LP (two legs, US $400) and Mad Scientist Audio Shotgun Heretical (two legs, US $249); the last one was clearly superior to the Acoustic Revive, and very very nice in itself; but the new Black Macig is a different animal: it's not that it's "miles ahead", it's rather that it is located in a different music world: it's not a difference of degree: rather, it's a tremendous jump difference, like coming from another audio planet!

Maybe i can use this visual image: i'ts like if you compare looking at a film on your 50" TV with the same film in a movie theater cinema!! You sit in front of your system with this cable and in front of you the full real, actual live concert appears, a little magically!! very, veeeeeeery big soundstage: very powerfull dynamics, all details there in an organic way: you close your eyes and there is little difference with a live performance, as long as you use realistic volume levels, of course.

200 HOURS
In between 150 and 200 hours a big jump in SQ has taken place! this is a phenomen I've seen many times while breaking in cables. In this case the results are really extraordinary.

What about dynamics? Well, it depends upon your amps and speakers, of course; but even with mine, which are just decent (Focal CMS 65, with two dedicated amplifiers each, one for tweeter (60w), one for bass (100w), dynamics are not short of impressive; bass, drums, orquestral tutti, sound as they should; at realistic volume levels, wiht some of my favourite tracks to test dynamics, the floor and my sofa are trembling... and the red warning light of my Focals are telling me i'm close to saturation!... enough?

What about layering? Yep, the ability of this cable to reproduce exactly the spatial location of the instruments, or their families in a symphonic orchestra, is totally exceptional; all you need is that the info is in the recording; as usual, this cable extracts all that info and you get everything on your speakers; in a complex score this is a really delightful pleasure for the most genuine music lover; yet that job is made very carefully: not in the analytical, artificial way, but making the whole orchestra playing in a totally organic, flowing manner.

And difficult timbres? I mean violin (specially massed violins) or trumpet in treble territory at high volumes, viola de gamba, clave, cymbals, hit-hat. Not difficult any more!! it's just like in live music!

And harmonics? Well, the instruments more prone to generate harmonics are piano, acoustic guitare and harp. With this cable ALL harmonics are there from the start! Nothing is lost, hence the incredible lenght of decays with these instruments.

Finally, what about voices? Well, human voices, specially femenine voices, are the most perfect musical instruments, with the marvelous ability to express all human emotions in a direct way. With this cable voices, either jazz, opera, lieder or chorus, sound perfect, period. The natural flow of the voices, no matter in what register or volume level, arrives directly to you brain, better to your heart, so if you're a sensitive person look no further!

300 HOURS: FINAL EXAMINATION WITH SELECTED TRACKS

https://www.audioasylum.com/audio/music/classical/messages/9746.html

Results: I played all these tracks one by one, to confirm my former, partial results; they have been confirmed 100%, with the best marks i've been able to see in my whole audiophile life. More than 40 years!!

Since I sold my rig and vinyls more than 30 years ago I started a search, often painful and dissapointing, to get analogic sound from digital sources. Oversampling and/or upsampling didn't work for me; HDCD didn't work for me, even SACD did'n work for me either; just small advances still inside the same prison. Later came DSD, it never worked for me at all. Only now, with a decent digital player, this Black Magic USB cable, a NOS/R2R DAC I'm again, finally, FINALLY, in full analogic territory. No one will get me out from here any more!!... :)

To finish: this cable is not just one more USB cable; rather, it is an audiophile bomb, a revolution, a totally new philosophy of reproducing music: a new generation of USB cables is born. The improvement you get belong to another completely different level: it's not a quantitative improvement, but a qualitative one; I'd like to summarize the effect like this: this cable supposes a full upgrade of your whole system! So before you upgrade any of your components, make sure you try this cable first; also, there is nothing to loose: you can try it for 30 days money back guarantee, no questions! You bet nobody is going to return this cable!!

Product Weakness:	none
Product Strengths:	total transparence and musicality, all details in recordings to DAC

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: active speakers
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Project Pre Box S2 Analogue
Sources (CDP/Turntable): DAC: Audio-GD R2R 2
Speakers: Focal CMS 65, with two dedicated amplifiers each, one for tweeter (60w), one for bass (100w)
Cables/Interconnects: Acrolink 7N P4030 II, Oyaide Tunami, Oyaide Black Mamba, Duelund DIY IC's
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Classical and jazz
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): PS Audio Dectet Power Center
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

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Amplifier:	active speakers
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Project Pre Box S2 Analogue
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	DAC: Audio-GD R2R 2
Speakers:	Focal CMS 65, with two dedicated amplifiers each, one for tweeter (60w), one for bass (100w)
Cables/Interconnects:	Acrolink 7N P4030 II, Oyaide Tunami, Oyaide Black Mamba, Duelund DIY IC's
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Classical and jazz
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	PS Audio Dectet Power Center
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

REVIEW: Mad Scientist Audio Black Magic USB Cable Cable

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