Digital coax cable, real world experiences?


Yes I know ANOTHER cable thread....lol
Guess that is why it has its own complete section
My question regards a cable I have not really paid much attention to previously, the digital coax connection from my media server to my preamp.
I was using a very old generic connection that is at least 15 years old but acquired a pretty cheap tributaries digital coax cable and thought oh well lets change it.
I was shocked and stunned at just how much more detail was present and the depth and solidity of bass was near overwhelming, granting I was listening to some pretty bass intense material at the time but still!
Now do not get me wrong I was once one of the biggest cable naysayers you would find and still think the majority of me now hearing changes is the quality of the rest of my system as previous "lower fi" systems just did not truly reveal any note(pun intended) worthy changes.
So my question is if I heard a significant difference with a fairly inexpensive cable what may occur with really going up the food chain on a digital coax cable? Or was it more that my previous no name very old cable was just that ..very old and poor.
Thoughts and real world experiences on digital coax cables?

128x128uberwaltz

Showing 4 responses by jond

Absolutely digital cables can make a huge difference I've had a number of different ones I've used, Kimber AGDL, Green Hornet, Nirvana, Cerious Technology, and currently using a cable from Jorma Design that sounds fantastic. The good news is there are always a lot of good used digital cables on Agon as people upgrade and/or switch to USB etc. To me what the best digital cables have given me, certainly my current cable, is better tonality and "flow" to the music, a great sense of beauty and subtlety to the music. Sorry that sounds a tad pretentious just not sure how else to describe it!
Sorry I cannot disagree with itzhak more good cables will allow your system to perform at its best, that's how they "improve" your sound. And a cable is not going to reveal a system weakness,  a mismatch of components may do that but not a cable.
@uberwaltz no the McIntosh would not be a bottle neck the digital conversion would happen in the outboard dac. The dac would then output an analog signal to an analog input on your McIntosh preamp.
Yes correct the McIntosh dac is not in the signal chain its limitations don't matter in that setup the Mac just gets an analog signal. So have fun!