[Puma Cat]

Really a fantastic review, Dan! You have demonstrated, once again, my view that your reviews put the "professional reviews" to shame. One key difference is that I find that many "pro reviews" focus a lot of the "technology" and "specs", and very, very little time on how the product performs with respect to presenting the musical experience. Your extensive descriptions of the variety and your very well-curated choices of the musical content you use during auditions does justice both to your musical knowledge,taste and sensibilities and add credibility to the product and your reviews. I put a lot more stock in reviews by you, Serge and Jim than most any professional reviewer I can think of.

I haven't had the pleasure of auditioning the Sigma USB cable, but the Shunyata Research Alpha cable demonstrates many of the qualities and attributes that you describe for the Sigma, most notably the naturalness, verisimilitude, accuracy, and listening ease these USB cables impart. They are literally a "component-level" upgrade. Your comments about the musical reproduction that it sounds like the musician is in the room with you are very consistent with my experience.

I note in your photographs a "generic" yellow Ethernet cable connecting the Aurender. If you're using Ethernet in any context/configuration to stream content from a music server, computer, NUC, NAS, etc., to a steamer/network bridge/Ethernet-suppported DAC, I'd encourage you to try out the newly released Shunyata Ethernet cables, even the entry-level Venom or mid-tier Alpha Ethernet.