ELECOM Has Released a High-Quality Audio USB Cable and I Am Genuinely Astonished

【Audio USB Cable Comparison】
1｜2｜OYAIDE ｜4｜WireWorld Chroma｜6 Models｜SUPRA

Lately, ELECOM — one of the major PC accessory suppliers — has been quietly rolling out products riding the recent hi-res audio boom, things like earphones and PC audio gear, and as a pure audio fundamentalist I find myself feeling rather conflicted about the whole thing. Because ELECOM, let’s be honest, is a manufacturer that has spent years churning out desktop PC speakers that prioritise low prices, features, and design concepts above all else, with absolutely no thought given to sound quality — toys, really, or rather nothing but toys, full stop.

So yes, one does find oneself wondering with some scepticism — ELECOM, for audio? Really? — but the DH-AB10/DH-AB20, their hi-res compatible high-quality USB cables for music, do at least look the part: gold-and-black aluminium connectors with a thoroughly premium feel, 4N OFC conductors, and a lustrous deep-blue braided sheath that shows genuine design sensibility. For a USB cable, the conductors are on the slender side — it’s a slim-profile design — but even with expensive high-end audio cables, I have tended to favour thinner cables (on the basis of their design philosophy), so if anything this only adds to my anticipation.

I’d like to put together a proper sound quality comparison with other USB cables and post it before too long, but after using the DH-AB10 for several days, my honest impression is — well, how to put it — about what you’d expect for the price, and in terms of serious PC audio or pure Hi-Fi use, a touch ambiguous in various respects. The way the sound has been tuned for “high quality” feels very much like hi-res audio stuck on as an afterthought, and once you’ve heard the more mature, seasoned sound that comes from expensive USB cables, you can’t quite shake the sense that the underlying philosophy here — the accumulated know-how behind the sound design — still has some way to go. That said, to put it the other way round, for listeners who aren’t familiar with the sound of proper audio cables, it’s probably well-made enough to raise an eyebrow in a good way.

What does concern me, though, is that the cheap, ultra-slim OA-use non-audio USB cables from ELECOM and ARVEL that I introduced previously — rough around the edges as they are — produce music that is far more alive and vibrant than the DH-AB10, with a crispness and tangible presence to both the sound quality and the imaging.

In fact, when I introduced the ASUS VivoMini VC65, I bought the ELECOM DH-AB10 at the same time, and when I hooked it up for an initial listen, the sound quality was underwhelming — the lack of musicality in particular was troubling enough to leave me feeling genuinely deflated. I thought, have I gone and bought a boring-sounding PC? (Though there’s really no way of knowing until you try it.) But then I pulled myself together, swapped in the ARVEL slim USB cable AUS05WH I’d been using before, and — what do you know — it sounded perfectly lovely. (Rather better than I’d expected, actually.)

ELECOM DH-AB10 / DH-AB20 — Sound Quality Review

The sound of the ELECOM DH-AB10 and DH-AB20, to put it charitably, is refined and delicate — a flat, cool-toned sound with a sense of clarity. Restrained throughout, cool in character, with a light touch in the bass. Perceived S/N is good, and the treble is slightly hard, sensitive in a glassy sort of way. In a sense, yes, it does have a hi-res kind of flavour. The biggest problem, however, is not the sound quality itself but the fact that musical expression feels suppressed — it’s remarkably dull. Things are too tidy; the life has been taken out. There is a delicate sense of resonance, but it feels like added colouration rather than the thing itself — the closest analogy I can think of is the sound you get when you increase the latency in a PC music player. As a result, the crispness along the time axis is lost, music flows blandly along, the natural ebb and flow that ought to be there is absent, and the whole thing ends up sounding curiously detached. As for which music suits it, rather than rock or pop (which seem closer to ELECOM’s core user base), it’s actually better suited to classical — and even then, music like choral works, where resonance takes precedence and dynamic shaping and temporal expression tend to be soft and indistinct anyway.

On the question of how it matches with PC audio equipment — computers, much like CD players or network audio players, vary enormously in sound quality depending on the model — but if the PC itself has a powerful yet murky, rough-edged sound, pairing it with the ELECOM DH-AB10 or DH-AB20 may well improve the perceived S/N and tidy up the sound quality to a point where it sits at just the right balance.

That said, I’m sure there are people who are genuinely attracted to the cool, distinctly contemporary-Japanese sound of the ELECOM DH-AB10 and DH-AB20, so when I say it doesn’t suit the “musicality” I look for, that is strictly what I mean and nothing more. Still, if only it had been a Japanese-flavoured sound that actually makes you happy to listen — something that, price and looks taken together, I could have praised unreservedly — it’s a shame in all sorts of ways. Sound quality aside, as a USB cable with a genuinely attractive design, it works rather well as a piece of interior decoration: even with the cable on show, it’s the kind of thing that puts you in a good mood just to look at it.

And yet — to those discerning gentlemen and ladies who pursue pure Hi-Fi down its niche and demanding path — please, don’t let yourselves be satisfied here. The Swedish SUPRA USB 2.0 shown in the image above, and indeed many of the music-oriented USB cables produced by long-established audio cable manufacturers around the world, have a way of surprising you with the quality of their sensibility and the thinking behind their sound. And conversely, if you simply want to enjoy music through a PC audio setup with a reasonably priced USB cable, rather than being swayed by the premium looks of the DH-AB10 or DH-AB20, you would be far wiser as a music lover to use your own ears and seek out something — from bundled cables or inexpensive off-the-shelf options — that simply makes the music enjoyable to listen to.

The number of ELECOM OA products I’ve bought over the years runs easily into the dozens — enough to fill a drawer — so I don’t particularly want to be too harsh on them, but the DH-AB10 and DH-AB20, being relatively affordable ELECOM products with good visibility, will inevitably end up as entry-level models that many people encounter. So I do hope that, at the very least, they can move beyond simply crafting an appearance of hi-res-flavoured high quality on the surface, and instead make products that, at a minimum, don’t spoil the wonder and joy of music. That’s the wish I’d like to leave with them, and on that note I’ll wrap up what is, for this site, a rather unusually critical review.

【Audio USB Cable Comparison】
1｜2｜OYAIDE ｜4｜WireWorld Chroma｜6 Models｜SUPRA