‘Can your digital hi-fi chain do with some noise reduction?’ asks Paul Rigby, aka The Audiophile Man. Whether you realise it not, the answer is almost certainly yes, and CAD’s USB Control is a solution that’s unobtrusively small, effortlessly simple and incredibly effective. 

Rigby kicks off his review with an unapologetic rant about those who like to insist on social media that “digital is either on or off, digital cannot be changed”.

“This sounds exactly like the propaganda I used to hear back when CD was launched. And we all know how wrong that was,” says Rigby. “Hi-fi, all hi-fi, as you and I know, is imperfect.”

“When hi-fi is laid bare in a house, it’s subject to life happening all around it. Imperfect, messy, dirty, grubby life. Grubby, messy life affects hi-fi in sonically terrible ways… Your listening room isn’t behind a secure force field operated by William Shatner. Your hi-fi technology has no choice but to interact with other technologies. And just because you can’t see these interactions, that doesn’t mean they ain’t happening.”

To cut a long story (and a very entertaining read) short, Rigby’s conclusion is this: “Anti-noise ancillaries are useful and, I would suggest, necessary.”

Computer Audio Design’s (CAD) USB Control is “a dinky little box that plugs into a USB port”. Small and simple, it’s designed to tackle unwanted high frequency noise across an extremely broad frequency spectrum, from KHz up into the GHz range.

“You plug it in and then that’s about it, really – it gets to work, draining noise.”

As always, Rigby’s review is thorough, and he tests the USB Control in a variety of kit and contexts.

“I’ve heard anti-noise units like this before,” he reports. “This CAD unit? It’s on a completely different level.”

Read Paul Rigby’s findings in full online at https://theaudiophileman.com/usb-control-from-cad/

Find out more and track down your nearest dealer at www.computeraudiodesign.com