AudioQuest Cinnamon USB A to B Cable
The AudioQuest Cinnamon USB A to USB B is the next step up from the Forest range of products. For your money, you get a significant increase in silver content from 0.5% to 1.25%. You also get a higher quality braid outside sheath over the basic PVC wrapper.
At first glance, that may not appear to be a lot, but it is absolutely all the small differences across your system that build to create the superior entertainment experience. So, the extra silver is quite a big deal! And just remember that although in 1982 Sony claimed that they gave us "Perfect sound forever," along with the attitude that, "it's just digital, so all CD players sound the same". And this attitude is still around when it comes to cables!
That reasoning has been well and truly disproved and qualitative differences between players has become accepted truth. Now the frontier has moved once again. Is digital audio really just ones and zeros? Technically it is, but with many years of listening to products at all prices, we don't believe so. Once you've had a chance to listen to an AudioQuest Cinnamon USB, we don't think you will either. And we would like to add that Audio Trends had humble beginnings and believe us when we say "price was definitely important" but we have always been ready to listen and learn. Cinnamon has been and still is one of the most popular series from AudioQuest. Why? Because it strikes a good balance in every area. Sure, if your gear warrants it, then of course step up to Carbon or Coffee USB cables. Make sure you read our product summarisation below.
Timing: Remember, a quality USB cable is a great way to connect your desktop or laptop computer to a half decent audio DAC - digital-to-analogue converter. For USB audio, as with all digital audio signals, it's critical to maintain accurate timing. This cable can reduce the timing errors or "jitter" that often makes digital music sound less clear and rich and three-dimensional. All AudioQuest cables definitely have a high-quality look and feel and in direct comparison to a free-in-the-box USB cable, you will experience greater bass extension, and the soundstage will be opened up with vocals sounding more natural.
The USB Cable For Music Lovers: AudioQuest Cinnamon is the USB cable for (1) serious music lovers and (2) those who want more but don't want to rob a bank to do so and here's three reasons why.
Silver Plated Conductors: Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion and reduce jitter. Solid silver-plated conductors (Silver over Copper) are excellent for very high-frequency applications, like USB audio. These signals, being such a high frequency, travel almost exclusively on the surface of the conductor. As the surface is made of high-purity silver, the performance is very close to that of a solid silver cable, but priced much closer to solid copper cable. This is an incredibly cost effective way of manufacturing very high-quality USB cables. Silver content 1.25%.
Tip: When it comes to conducting signals, silver is the best-performing metal — better than either copper or gold. Cinnamon's silver-plated conductors are designed to reveal more high-frequency detail.
Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation: Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. Cinnamon USB uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation because air absorbs next to no energy and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile. Thanks to all the air in Foamed-PE, it causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.
Terminations: Precision gold-plated plugs are carefully attached with the very best solder. Through choice of flux and metallurgy, AQ solder has been optimised to make a low-distortion connection. The difference you hear between solders is a result of connection quality. AQ solder does not have a high silver content because the more silver there is in solder, the more difficult it is to make a good connection.
About USB
The letters USB stand for Universal Serial BUS and this was established by a stalwart group of companies such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft (just to name a few) in order to give the personal computing world a truly universal standard and means to connect devices such as hard drives, printers, cameras and more importantly, to us, our audio components. Included in the original description are protocols for the pristine transfer of audio over USB. Great care and sensitivity went into this design. Consequently, a computer connected to a USB-enabled digital-to-analogue converter can outperform the best compact disc players available today. AudioQuest is committed to contributing products that honour USB's ability to deliver state-of-the-art performance on this new and wonderful frontier.
Our Take On The Cinnamon USB
AudioQuest Cinnamon is properly engineered, made with quality materials, and tested through hours and hours of listening by people who have a passion for music. The Cinnamon, like the lower priced Forest perform very well on music. The difference, besides the colour of the outside braid, is in the silver content - 0.5% on the Forest compared with 1.25% on the Cinnamon. The theory is that increased silver content contributes to a faster passage of the signal. So, if you enjoy listening to digital music files on a decent audio system, you'll be surprised at the difference a quality USB cable can make to your enjoyment.
Main Features & Specifications
- Product Description: AudioQuest Cinnamon USB 2.0 Type A To Type B Data Cable
- Terminations: Gold-plated for maximum signal transfer
- Fitted with a USB type-A connector on one end and a USB type-B connector on the other end
- Conductors: Solid Long Grain Copper
- Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion and reduce jitter
- Silver-plated conductors are excellent for very high-frequency applications, like USB audio. The Cinnamon contains 1.25%
- Insulation: The USB cable's solid Polyethylene insulation ensures critical signal-pair geometry
- USB 2.0: This cable exceeds USB 2.0 data rate specifications
- Available Lengths: 750mm; 1.5 Metre; 3 Metre; 5 Metre
- AudioQuest Product Code: AQ-CINNAMONUSB/.75
- Manufacturer's Australian Warranty: 5 Years - Does not cover misuse or abuse
Note: Features & Specifications subject To Change Without Notice. E&OE