Kubala-Sosna Emotion Digital USB Cables

A digital cable is a transmission line. Done poorly, it forces the DAC to spend its energy correcting for jitter and timing errors that should never have arrived. Done well, it lets the DAC do what it was designed to do — recover the music. Kubala-Sosna offers digital cables in five formats across the line: AES/EBU (DAE) for studio-style balanced digital, S/PDIF coaxial (DCX) for the most common single-ended digital link, USB for direct computer-to-DAC and streamer-to-DAC connections, Ethernet (LAN) for networked playback chains, and a dedicated 50Ω coaxial cable available only at the Realization tier for the most demanding clock and digital links. Each is offered at the tiers where K-S has engineered the cable to a level the digital chain at that price point can actually use.

Emotion is the cable that started Kubala-Sosna. It was the company's first product in 2004, and it has been continuously refined inside the line ever since. It is the OptimiZ2 tier where the digital complement gets serious — AES/EBU, S/PDIF, USB all present — and it is the speaker cable Myles Astor describes in Positive Feedback as “warm, a little forgiving, and a touch soft” in a way that flatters real music. The right customer is the listener who has earned a complete reference loom and wants the K-S house sound at full statement. This is a destination tier for many K-S buyers. The step-up to Celebration is a refinement; the step-up to Sensation is the OptimiZ3 architecture change.

Emotion as the USB cable is the OptimiZ2 architecture at its top execution in the digital link most reference USB DACs are engineered around. This is the cable for a listener whose streamer-to-DAC chain is at the level of an Innuos Statement or XACT S1 EVO feeding a Bricasti, MSB, or Merason — the configuration where the USB cable's noise behavior and timing matter as much as either chassis at the ends. Emotion has been refined in this format for the better part of two decades. The step to Sensation USB is a generation change; for a system at OptimiZ2 reference level, Emotion is the destination at this format.

Series: OptimiZ2™

Architecture: RevolutionZ™

Configuration options: USB 2.0 audio

Termination options: USB-A to USB-B (standard audio USB termination)

Length range: 1.0m to 3.0m in 0.5m increments

Pricing formula: First-meter price plus per-additional-meter rate

Made in USA — Kubala-Sosna Research, East Hanover, NJ

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