Digital Cable Choice; how critical is it?


I am a beleiver that analog cables play a big part in a system's sonic performance.

I am giving consideration to adding an external DAC to my system, for the first time. Always using a single box digital source, I have no experience with digital cables.

I really am a music guy & not a computer/techie guy. So, considering that the digital information that runs from the DAC to the Preamp is 1's & 0's or bits & bytes or whatever they are called; how critical is it to the sonic perfromance that I use an elaborate digital cable, as I have done with my analog interconnects?

Is the sound quality affected with the use of different cables, while still in the digital domain?

Your experience is appreciated
barrelchief

Showing 1 response by aschaub0

My experience has been that most digital cables do sound different and that it's not necessarily a matter of cost. Please remember that a bit stream (0's and 1's) is NOT traveling down the cable, but an analog waveform with peaks and valleys that gets sampled and turned back into 0's and 1's. So anything that can effect an analog cable can effect a digital cable. In fact, some of the best digital cables I have heard (at least metal S/PDIF cables) are really analog cables at heart. So keep that thought in mind when auditioning cables. FWIW, the best performing S/PDIF cables I have heard are the Audio Note Pallas, the Locus Design Core, the Apogee Wyde Eye, and the Kondo Sounds Labs KSL-LP, most of which are terminated with RCA's (in my case).