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Everything You Wanted to Know About USB
Everyone knows what USB is nowadays – but how much do you really know? I bet the vast majority of people don’t even know what USB really stands for. We’ll get to that, but the fact remains that USB is so common in today’s tech world that we don’t even think about it. That’s a good and bad thing, but its commonality also means that it’s important. We’re here today to tell you why USB cables are important – especially when it comes to transmitting the data of your music.
Cables are the connection point from point A to point B, and when it comes to music (especially high-resolution audio that can include very large file sizes), if your music data isn’t getting to where it needs to go, that doesn’t bode well for the quality of audio you might get on the receiving end. Before we get into the issues of quality and materials, let's start from the beginning and go over some basics about USB cables. They come in varying shapes, sizes, connectors, lengths, and more, and it can be confusing to understand the differences. So, what's the deal with USB Cables?
Why USB Cables Matter - and Everything You Wanted to Know about USB
USB Stands for “Universal Serial Bus” and is the most common connection protocol for electronic devices today. It’s able to fulfill a number of different tasks such as transmitting data and charging. You probably have nearly hundreds of cables lying around your house and have likely thrown a lot away over the years. They come with everything – computers, phones, headphones, wireless speakers, tablets, toys with rechargeable batteries, game consoles. There's a lot to learn about USB and why - particularly in USB Audio cases - the quality of your cable determines the performance of your audio devices and the overall quality of your music. Video coming soon!
VIDEO COMING SOON!
What Devices Use A USB Cable?
USB Stands for “Universal Serial Bus” and is the most common connection protocol for electronic devices today. It’s able to fulfill a number of different tasks such as transmitting data and charging. You probably have nearly hundreds of cables lying around your house and have likely thrown a lot away over the years. They come with everything – computers, phones, headphones, wireless speakers, tablets, toys with rechargeable batteries, game consoles. Most computers and electronic devices have some form of USB connection, and it has become a standard for companies to ship cables with their products.
The USB protocol has been updated over time since its creation, resulting in faster data transfer and charging speeds. This has also resulted in a plethora of different USB cable connectors and it can be challenging to figure out what does what. Even though two cables might be USB cables, they can look completely different and also have varying performance.
We'll go over the differences in connectors and types of USB cables in a minute, but these connector variations also affect what devices are compatible with the cables. Of course, you can always get adapters, but you'll still be constrained by the specs of the cable itself rather than the connectors and/or adapters. Some ports on older devices will not be compatible with newer cables, or charging speeds might take much longer if the cable is an older version or the connected power adapter doesn't produce enough wattage for the devices' specifications. So let's start breaking it down - everything you ever wanted to know about USB cables and why they matter.
The Different Types of USB Cables
It's ironic in a way that there are so many cable types and variations despite being a "Universal" serial bus. Like all things, USB technology has improved over time, but it all started somewhere. Here we'll go over the generations of USB and how the data transfer and charging speeds have improved from one generation to the next.
It's ironic in a way that there are so many cable types and variations despite being a "Universal" serial bus. Like all things, USB technology has improved over time, but it all started somewhere. Here we'll go over the generations of USB and how the data transfer and charging speeds have improved from one generation to the next.
USB Cable Generations / Speed Standards
- USB 1.0 is the first generation of USB Type-A connectors. The max data transfer speed is 12Mbps and charging power up to 15W. The first generation of USB specs are tremendously slow by today's standards, but will still work with the latest USB data ports if you don't need fast transfer speeds. That's the beauty of backward compatibility for the USB standard. USB 2.0 has a max data transfer speed of 480Mbps and supports lengths up to 5m. The max charging power for USB 2.0 is typically up to 15W. USB 2.0 is still widely used today, though it is getting phased out by 3.0 quickly.
- USB 2.0 has a max data transfer speed of 480Mbps and supports lengths up to 5m. The max charging power for USB 2.0 is typically up to 15W. USB 2.0 is still widely used today, though it is getting phased out by 3.0 quickly.
- USB 3.0 (or 3.2) comes in 3 variations. Gen 1 has a max data speed of 5Gbps and usually tops out with 3m cable lengths. Max charging power is typically up to 15W. Gen 2 USB 3.2 maxes out data speeds at 10Gbps but only allows for 1m cable lengths. Max charging power however can go up to 100W with compatible chargers. Gen 2x2 USB 3.2 maxes at 20Gbps data transfer speeds. USB 3.0 is currently the most popular version today and is standard on most computers.
- USB 4.0 is new and rolling out to more devices, but you'll see an average data speed of 40Gbps and max charging power of 100W with compatible chargers (the same specs as thunderbolt). It's still in the early phases of being rolled out as it's quite new to the market. Expect USB 4.0 to really start making an appearance by the end of 2024 (estimated at the time of writing this blog).
The thing that really makes the USB 'universal" is backward compatibility. Many cables are designed to be device-specific, but backward compatibility technically applies to ports rather than the cables.
If you connect a USB 2.0 cable to a USB 3.0 port, you will be limited by the connection protocol of the source and the receiver. If both the source and receiver are both 3.0, then you'll get USB 3.0 speeds. If the source is 3.0 but the receiver is 2.0, then you'll be capped by the receiver's ability to transfer at USB 2.0 speeds. This is an important distinction to make so you don't expect a USB 2.0 hard drive to magically start transferring at USB 4.0 speeds if you have the port.
If you connect a USB 2.0 cable to a USB 3.0 port, you will be limited by the connection protocol of the source and the receiver. If both the source and receiver are both 3.0, then you'll get USB 3.0 speeds. If the source is 3.0 but the receiver is 2.0, then you'll be capped by the receiver's ability to transfer at USB 2.0 speeds. This is an important distinction to make so you don't expect a USB 2.0 hard drive to magically start transferring at USB 4.0 speeds if you have the port.
This effectively means that the cables themselves aren't capped at specific USB transfer speeds when it comes to their materials and geometries. It has more to do with the connector(s) on the cable and the USB ports on both the source and connecting device that you are connecting the cable to. Bottom line: if you have different USB protocols your transfer and charging speed will always be limited by the older generation port or device.
The USB technology evolves, the clearest way to see that is by the connectors on the cables. As the tech improves, so do the specs, so let's see how transfer and charge speeds change with each generational update.
USB Connectors
There are a variety of USB connector types, and they can sometimes be indicators of what generation device they go with depending on the design, color, and connector type. It's not always so cut and dry, however.
USB TYPE-A: In the early days of USB, the most common connector was USB Type-A (and still is the most common type today). This is the rectangular-shaped connector that fits into most portable wall chargers, computer ports for peripherals and devices, and more. The Type-A standard has been around for years, and it's not until recently that it's being phased out by USB-C which we'll talk about in a minute. You can find Type-A connectors across all USB generations. USB 1.0-2.0 - You can find Micro-A and Mini-A variants which provide the same performance but have smaller connectors. These have been phased out mostly with Micro-B and Mini-B in USB 3.0 applications.
USB TYPE-B: Type-B connectors are larger connectors, nearly square-shaped, and were common with older computer peripherals like printers and such. The USB 3.0 version had an additional notch at the top and was colored blue. USB 3.0-3.1 Micro-B (or micro-USB) connectors were popular with external hard drives and had an additional notch for the pinout, but these are now being replaced by the more popular and newer USB-C connectors.
Both early Type-A and B (USB 1 and 2.0) came in a mini and micro variant, offering a smaller-sized connector (Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro B). The smaller Type-A versions were less common than the Type-B, and for a time were the new standard over their larger connector counterparts. Once the USB Standard graduated to gen 3.0 the Type-A connectors got a makeover with a blue PCB indicating it was the newer USB 3.0 as opposed to the white of USB 1.0 and 2.0. You'll find blue on both Type-A and the even larger Type-B USB 3.0 connectors. The micro and mini variants also did away with the Type-A versions, leaving Mini-B and Micro-B to dominate.
USB TYPE-C: The latest standard for USB connection is the Type-C connector. There are a lot of great things about the newer connector from the fact that it's smaller than previous USB type connectors and it's also double-sided, meaning you can connect it properly from either side. With types A and B, there is a specific configuration in order for the connection to be made. Type-C cables and connectors can also provide and receive more power than previous USB versions, as well as output display data to a monitor, and be used specifically for USB PD (power delivery) applications. USB-A devices (USB Type-A) are often used with adapters to update the compatibility to USB-C.
The other convenient thing about USB-C being a smaller, more powerful, and compatible connector type is that the connection slot takes up much less room on devices. Laptops specifically have been adopting the port for this very reason. We'll also see cable types like Thunderbolt and Lightning connectors, but for the sake of this blog, we'll only focus on the USB standard. We'll see lots of similarities between charging and data transfer speeds between Thunderbolt 3&4 and USB 4.0.
USB Audio Cables
There's an important distinction to make when it comes to audio-specified USB cables. Audio USB cables like Moon Audio's Silver and Black Dragon USB Cables are not meant for usual data transmission in the way that you would connect a hard drive to your computer. Audio cables do not need all the pins for data that usual USB cables utilize. We typically use 4-5 pins for audio transfer, which is all you need. More pins mean faster rates, more data, more conductors, and more expensive cables.
When we say that a USB cable is meant for audio transmission only, this means that the cable should only be used for connecting your source to a DAC or music streamer (just as an example). The only thing that should be transmitted through the cable is your audio data. You might ask, why would I get a cable that only does audio when I can get a stock USB cable that does everything? Answer: the same reason why audiophiles and music lovers buy a standalone DAC, or a high-end preamplifier or music streamer. The fact is that a standalone device or devices meant to do one thing, perform better than do-it-all devices. Better materials, better quality construction, and the fact that something was designed specifically for one purpose means the same thing for cables. In this case, creating and configuring a cable for specific USB audio needs means that it will do that job much better than a standard mass-produced cable made with bad materials.
Materials matter, and that's an important part of the equation for audio. Dragon USB Audio Cables are not designed to be used as hard drive cables, because the transfer speeds are not meant for high-capacity data transfer. High-transfer data speeds use more pins and conductors in a cable to be able to more efficiently more lots of data from point A to point B. Dragon USB Audio Cables are designed with only the conductors and pins necessary to transmit audio data only. If a typical USB 3.0 cable connector has 24 pins, that means we'd have to have 24 conductors of UP OCC silver and copper, and that adds up resulting in really expensive cables. On average it takes 4-5 pins for an audio-spec USB cable.
Audio Only Needs USB 2.0
"Most USB audio interfaces are USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 compatible, so you should have no problem getting a device to work with any computer manufactured in the last 5 years. A USB audio interface attaches to the computer with a standard USB connector and to the device itself with any number of other connectors, ranging from proprietary connections to standardized connections. USB Audio devices do not need the bandwidth of USB3.0 and USB3.0 is backward compatible with USB2.0. USB 2.0 can handle bandwidth of 480 MB/second. To put this into perspective, 24 bit/192 kHz audio–the highest bandwidth in commercial use–uses approximately 10 MB/second per track of audio. So, a stereo recording would take approximately 20 MB/second or 5 percent of the possible USB 2.0 bandwidth. This large amount of bandwidth available allows for USB audio interfaces to accommodate just about any recording or playback scenario imaginable." -NuPrimeAudio
The most important thing about USB is the geometry of the cable itself: the quality, length, shielding, and more. Long cable lengths produce a large resistance, so the shorter the cable, the less distance the data has to run and therefore less resistance in getting to its desired destination. Shielding is extremely important too, because copper and silver conductors act as antennas and will pick up any noise they can if not shielded properly - thus resulting in added noise and interference with your music. We over-shield our Dragon Cables for this very reason. If the cable is too long, or the geometry isn't perfect (which causes interactions in the electrical field which can cause more issues), or the cable isn't shielded properly - all these things can lead to what is called data packet loss.
What is Packet Loss?
When data gets transferred from point A to point B it gets sent in a measurable called a packet. A packet is a small unit of data that gets sent between an origin or source and the destination. So in this case, it would be the audio data from your hard drive to a music streamer, or from your computer to an external DAC. Packet loss happens when one or more of these packets fail to reach its destination. This results in performance loss in most applications, but when it comes to digital audio data there can arise inconsistencies and issues with the audio and overall quality. This is where people start to run into clocking and jitter issues. Your audio suffers in the end, so minimizing packet loss is critical for audio scenarios.
The best way to combat packet loss is to make sure you are using quality USB cables that are made with good materials and consistent geometries. These factors help ensure that data packets get to where they belong when they need to. Cheap and stock cables are notorious for subpar performance in this regard, so make sure you are prioritizing the quality of your cables just like you are for the gear itself. Your gear is only as strong as the weakest link, and most of the time that's your stock cables.
If you're experiencing packet loss when it comes to high-resolution audio, you're not hearing all of your music! It becomes extremely important that data packets get to their designated location when it comes to high-resolution audio data. Hi-res audio contains a LOT of data compared to streaming low-res MP3s, and poor quality materials and construction can limit the amount and speed that data transfers; especially with larger data amounts.
OTG USB Cables
USB On-The-Go (OTG) is a standard available on many Android phones that allows portable devices to act as USB hosts. This is a great way to expand the utility of your smartphone or tablet. OTG protocol allows you to be able to connect external devices like a storage drive, camera, mouse, and keyboard to your smart device.
The real benefit of this comes with transferring data. Before the OTG protocol, you would have to connect your phone to your laptop or computer, connect the external drive, flash drive, or SD card to the same computer, and initiate the data transfer through the computer. It was a tedious and time-consuming process.
The real benefit of this comes with transferring data. Before the OTG protocol, you would have to connect your phone to your laptop or computer, connect the external drive, flash drive, or SD card to the same computer, and initiate the data transfer through the computer. It was a tedious and time-consuming process.
With USB OTG, you can now connect the external drive directly to the smartphone or tablet, in which case the device would act as a host (like the computer in the previous example), and transfer the data directly without the use of a middleman. It's a more efficient and easier way to transfer data to your device. In order to use OTG you'll need a suitable cable or adapter from your external device to your phone or tablet. There are lots of options here, and you'll need to make sure that your devices can support OTG for this process. If you have any questions feel free to contact us and we'll be more than happy to help guide you through this process.
Apple's mobile devices don't offer proper support for USB OTG. You can still connect some external storage devices to your iPhone or iPad, though, as they come pre-equipped to transfer data from external storage devices - as long as you have a compatible lightning or USB-C cable or adapter.
Buying USB Cables
Typically most people don't think about buying USB Cables due to the sole fact that you already have a million of them lying around the house from your other devices. When it comes to USB and backward compatibility, cables can typically be used for different devices. But when it's time to get a new cable or you need something for a special connection option, it's easy to go online and just buy the cheapest option available.
As we've already talked about, cheap cables can lead to a myriad of issues. Poorly made cables can be extremely faulty with charging speeds and unreliable performance. Sometimes cables can be made with geometric inconsistencies or bad shielding, and in some cases, they can cause fires. The other factor is that cheap cables are not made to last. I'd argue that the average consumer doesn't take care of their devices like an audiophile or computer/tech-savvy individual.
If you're looking for new cables for a specific device, you'll need to also make sure that it's compatible with the matching charger if you are planning on using it for charging specifically. Not all cables are rated for PD or high-speed charging, and if they meet too much resistance, can get hot enough to damage your device or cause a fire.
Sometimes the quality of the connector or the configuration of the pinouts can also cause damage to your devices. For instance, the Nintendo Switch gaming console uses a proprietary USB-C pinout and is recommended that users only purchase licensed Nintendo-branded chargers. There have been countless documented accounts of Switches getting bricked from using third-party docks and charging cables.
Your cables aren't throw-away devices and can directly affect the performance and protection of your device.
Dragon Cables
Your gear is only as good as its weakest link, and in most cases, it's the stock cables. Companies just don't put the R&D into their cables like they do for the device. That being said, the Silver Dragon USB cable is a higher-quality cable than your OEM option and is built to spec with premium materials and components. If there was a Best Dragon Cables of 2023 list the Silver Dragon USB would be number one. Year after year this is our top-selling Dragon cable. Why is a quality USB cable important for your DAP and other audio gear? Well because they can be used as a high-quality source for your DAC in your home system. It can take the place of a computer to be used as your server and streamer. Some DAPs are even Roon Endpoints. And vice versa - these can also be used as headphone amps & DAC for your laptop when you are working remotely. There are a lot of reasons why you need to make sure your USB cables are not afterthoughts, no matter what source device you are plugging them into.
Our audio cables bring out more of what you love in your music and audio gear. If you love your headphones but wish they had a bit more top-end sparkle - a Silver Dragon headphone cable would be a great option. If your USB cables keep dying - as many stock cables do - then check out our quality USB audio cables. We say time and time again that materials matter, and our audio cables and custom geometries actually help to bring out those desired properties in your gear and music. We make tons of custom options for our customers so that you can get the right HiFi Audio cable for your exact needs. If you have any questions feel free to Contact Us and we'll be more than happy to help.
Generally, stock audio cables are manufactured with subpar materials, metals with impurities, poor geometries, and an overabundance of layers to make them look and feel like a fire hose. Inconsistency and lack of quality control in stock cables can lead to poor sound quality and a veiled sound vs. what the musician intended for you to hear and feel from the music. Dragon cables are handcrafted with the highest standards and made to order according to your specific needs. At Moon Audio, we create a Custom HiFi Audio Cable for you using the highest quality UP-OCC silver or copper conductors that can be manufactured. UP-OCC metals are void of impurities and are optimized for signal transfer and sound quality. We have one of the largest collections of audio and headphone connection options available online and we create limitless audio cable options depending on your specific gear and needs.
Why Dragon Cables?
You’ve heard the saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, right? Well, the same applies to your brand-new audiophile-grade headphones or other audio components. The weakest link, in this case, is your stock cable or the cheap interconnects the manufacturer threw in the box just to get you up and running. Why is the cable always an afterthought, when it’s just as important as the rest of your system? At Moon Audio, we use the best raw materials in our cables to unveil your music. We believe the materials matter and your audio cables should have the same care and craftsmanship that manufacturers put into their audio components and headphones. Audio cables are ultimately the connection to your music. The fact remains that cabling is often considered the last priority to that of the main product and a means to cut down the overall production costs. It’s as simple as that.
Verdict
Hopefully, this guide has helped you figure out how to sort that box or drawer full of unused or old cables and what they connect to. Understanding that USB cables come in a variety of transfer and charging speed options depending on the connector type is an important thing to keep in mind when figuring out which cable to use. For high-resolution audio purposes, USB cables need to be made with high-quality materials in order to minimize performance issues and data packet loss. The only way to make sure this doesn't happen is to have higher-quality cables (than your stock options) to match the performance that your audio gear demands.
Your audio device is only as good as its weakest link. Most of the time the cables that come packaged with your device are that link. There's a lot to learn about USB cables, what they do, and how they do it. The bottom line is that USB cables get your data from point A to point B, and depending on the quality of that cable you'll find lots of variety as how to well it does the job. As an in-house, high-quality cable manufacturer, feel free to contact us with any questions that you might have. If you need a custom cable solution we have one of the largest collections of cable connectors around and we'll be more than happy to assist you however we can. Your music deserves better than a stock cable, so it's time to unleash the true potential of your audio.
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