Carbon USB A to USB 3 Micro B. Good cable. Connection from Bryston BDP-2 to SSD.
Cinnamon USB B TO USB C. Good cable. iMac desktop to PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC.
I have a short Curious USB cable for my microRendu. It does a good job. Well made.
I’ve had all 3 at one time or another. I’m selling my carbon USB just replaced it with Diamond. The Carbon is good I’m still waiting a little longer to comment on Diamond it’s only been in my system for a couple weeks. I can tell the sound has more detail and accuracy with Diamond so far.
Yeah, i got the diamond and its amazing - worth it imo.
AQ diamond rj/e (EtherRegen > Melco), AQ diamond usb (Melco > Matrix) and AQ diamond hdmi (Matrix > DS).
Never regretted the investment, amazing quality and synergy using pure silver (Siltech/Crystalcable) interconnects and speaker cable further down the chain.
Anything less than diamond is false economy
Carbon USB between my Bryston BDA3 and BDP3. I nearly ripped it back out of my system at first listen. I found it to be cold and harsh compared to the cheap Kimber USB it replaced. By harsh I mean hyper-detailed and in my face, which isn’t my cup of tea.
Glad I didn’t. After some supreme patience on my part it relaxed and I enjoy it. Would hesitate before forking out upwards of 800 bucks for diamond, though. There are a lot of options (I’m looking at Cardas high speed USB).
Yes, all AQ cables require fairly good time to burn-in. My latest addition was Coffee USB and it took a few weeks.
Yes Carbon is great.
I had the same experience as you and wanted to replace it.
I just ordered the Diamond USB B to C. It seems like this is Paul’s choice (I saw it here somewhere), for the DSD DAC.
Now, what happened to the 72V Diaelectric module? I am reading reviews from ~5 years ago, and it seems the Diamond had it, but now it does not. Anyone know why?
That’s an interesting question…? 
It actually looks like the Diamond USB “A” to USB “B” still has the DBS feature, but the “B” to “C” doesn’t for some reason…
I asked AudioQuest and they confirmed that all the Diamond cables have the unit. It’s just the website that’s wrong in the case of the B to C.
What level of gear is required to precisely hear differences between these expensive USB cables?
10k$ speakers?
You will hear a difference with them on all systems. The better the equipment the more significant the difference will most likely be. It becomes a cost consideration. You probably won’t put a $2k USB cable on a $250 Dac but I’m sure the DAC will sound better with it not $2k better but it makes a difference.
Would you say an Audioquest Cinnamon USB → Schiit Eitr galvanic isolator / coax out → Audioquest Cinnamon Coax → Electrocompaniet PD-1 is just enough? (The 'companiet is really a high performance DAC)
How does the Cinnamon series compare to the top cables?
I bought a Cinnamon coaxial cable about a month ago. After about 150 hours of play it sounded good, but not nearly transparent and detailed to justify its price tag, so I returned it. I have yet to replace it but am considering a Nordost Blue Heaven coaxial at this point. I wish there were more cable comparisons/shootouts online.
I have a Carbon USB from N100H to Matrix and a Carbon AES/EBU from Matrix to DAC. Sounds very good especially compared to the Kimber and a few other USB cables I have. Not planning to upgrade at the moment as my cable philosophy tends to be more “do no harm” then “this will be a big improvement”. I like AQ, however speaker cables and XLRs are Nordost…
Happy Listening…
Thanks, which Nordost cables do you have?
I use the Heimdahl 2 for both XLR and speaker