Slightly off topic, but here goes. I doubt that any of you would have read this piece I'll be referring to, but it appeared in a US magazine titled Fanfare. It's a long running magazine for the hard-core classical music listener. Back in the late 1980s and '90s (IIRC) the primary audio reviewer was Neil Levenson. He was a talented reviewer and (again, IIRC) used Naim equipment for a long time. Another contributor was Mike Silverton, who was a died-in-the-wool cable denier and pretty much fell into the objectivist camp.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I'll never forget the column in which Mike Silverton reported his experiment with different speaker cables. For many years he'd denied the possibility that speaker cables could make a difference. There was NO WAY they could. It was *impossible* from an electrical engineering standpoint and from a commonsense point of view. Snake oil. Utter BS.
I don't remember what the subject speaker wires were - they might have been silver, for heavens sake - but he was honest enough to admit that he'd been wrong and that, in fact, speaker wires made a difference. A "huge" difference, for him. I appreciated that he was humble enough to admit that he'd been wrong. Though I've never, in fact, done much experimenting with wires.
There have been many references on this thread of the human tendency towards "confirmation bias". I think this bias can run both ways. We can hear a difference when there isn't one and we can not hear a difference when there is one. I'm trying to be objective and just listen. I consider myself a bit of a skeptic, but since my good buddy loaned me the Venom (because he upgraded to a higher level Shunyata) and because he says it made a difference for him in his system, I'm trying to see for myself. I respect him. We've known each other for ~50 years, not that that matters. But it does go partway in explaining why I respect his opinion and want to see for myself if this USB cable matters.
And for all you other skeptics out there, I have a simple suggestion. Try a different cable, a well-regarded one. See for yourself whether it makes a difference. Have some fun. That's all I'm trying to do. It's not like I'm trying to discover another universe or anything.