Very interesting article.
When I was younger, I remember being so annoyed whenever someone would leave the TV on in another room. The CRT whine felt like it was penetrating my skull. It took me a good while to figure out that most people could rarely, if ever hear that noise when a TV was running properly. I assumed it was normal and everyone tolerated it
This may well be a case where human and psycho-acoustic factors come into play (expectation rather than experience) as the science/engineering is pretty clear cut and very simple. However, if someone does have a technical explanation for other effects (with some data to back it up), I'm certainly open to learning more.
BTW: I think this applies to more than just USB - most digital audio connections don't simply pour bits over the "wire" - rather there's a packetized structure involved that does have error checking (and an establised timing/buffer model).
I come from the Digital Television world, mostly inventing and standardizing new transport structures...
Rich
As an example, how come a faulty HDMI cable can cause video artefacts resembling random fuzzy picture noise (which going on appearance alone doesn't look like lost packets/data, but seems overlaid on what is functional video). The signal is there, just with added snow:) I've observed this on a Chinese cable which was beyond spec and far too long.
That's the only reason I wouldn't totally dismiss claims of one USB cable being "better" than another, even though it seems like the end results should be far more 0 and 1.
