Looking for a Giant Killer Digital cable



Hello all,

I’m looking for a Budget ‘Giant Killer’ RCA coaxial cable to connect my Oppo 203 to a DAC for music playback.

Can someone suggest something currently available in the $50 to $150 price range?

If however your experience says some new Optical cable in that range is as good or better, please, by all means do mention it as I could go either way of course!

A 1M to 1.5M will be sufficient.

Huge thanks!
blindjim
@folkfreak

Appreciate the thoughtful insights and personal EXP accounts. Very cool.

ULTIMATELY I FOUND THRU THESE PAGES AND OTHERS, bnc AND aes WERE BETTER INTERFACES. SOME INTERESTING GEAR HOWEVER DID NOT ALWAYS provide both or either. Then many digital devices began hanging their hats onto USB conversion to get past or beyond PC Sound cards. Albeit I had quite good results using the likes of Lynx or a Hammer (??).   I still enjoy what the Lynx AES 16 express brings to the what ever DAC it feeds, even though the AES cable is quite low on the food chain. Gotham.

Presently it seems the streaming fascination has exploded in my absence and much press says the inherent bug a boos of USB have been soundly addressed to the point   USB has once more become a solid avenue for data transference.

I’m still residing in the camp of Ethernet to the streamer thingy but would then prefer the conduit du jour either be AES or BNC at the what ever dAC side.

RE directional cable

Every cable I’ve ever owned is directional.

Each one goes DIRECTLY from one conection to another. No stops in between. No detours. Picture taking. No Autograph seeking. No Chucky Cheese and definitely no loitering.

With luck, we’ll see first hand on several accounts in due time. Thanks.
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@lowrider57
lol
blindjim >   organics are key. Thereafter, imaging. Is the
Aren't we looking for these attributes in the rest of our system?

Thank you. yes. Of course.

That brief insight on tones and presentation is the bar I hold for any thing entering and remaining in my main audio system. Albeit, the usual arbiter is its affordability and just as with any long term relationship compromises eventually find their way into the equation due to financial constraints.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to put together outfits which demonstrate loads of ‘they are here’ or I am there events, without inordinately reducing the on hand listening catalog. Music listening for me is a devotion, not a discipline. Music making? That is where discipline is unavoidable.

… and yep. It do take a while some times.
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tommylion
fascinating. Many thanks.
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wloeb

I am very grateful. Tanks.
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roxy54

OK. I’m thinking I’m sold. Actually on a couple two or three wires mentioned here.
Very nice. Huge thanks.


At the bottom of your budget i like the signal cable offerings either copper or silver. At the top, the Audioquest  Carbon is good.

@tom_hankins
Hmmm. Did not know the Carbon was available as a SPDIF. Thought it was just a USB wire. Good.

Do you feel the Carbon is similar in either respect, USB or SPDIF, acoustically or sonically speaking of course?
Thanks.
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aolprodj

thank you for your input.
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Some time back, there was much to do about the length of digital cables. The upshot of it all was that 1.5M (6ft) cables were the prime choice for ANY likewise application.

In fact, this desired or presumed length of 6ft. began expressing itself as the golden rule length for analog cables too.

Does this still hold true? Or has the current advancements in jitter correction within the devices addressed this to the point of making one particular length vs another, irrelevant to the conversation? Thanks.

Jitter correction really doesn't have anything to do with the length of the cable.  Jitter can be caused by different things, but mostly it is cause by poor clocks or translating audio data back and forth between different digital transmission clock rates.  A good example of this is transmitting S/PDIF over HDMI signal data.  Jitter can also be caused by a "store-and-forward" mechanism of transferring digital data between data bus sections.

The minimum length of cable recommended is generally 1.5M (which is just over 4 1/2 feet).  I always go 6 feet / 2 meter just to be safe.  A short cable can cause reflections.  This happens when the square wave pulse generated at the source hits the target receiver, but the pulse is actually reflected or echoed back down the wire to the source transmitter - which then can cause interference with the next generated pulses (sometimes cancelling out the pulses enough so that it comes across as a NULL pulse).

This doesn't just relate to digital SPDIF coax.  The cable length / reflection issue occurs with all digital cables, including USB and HDMI as well.

There are times where you have a very strong transmitter (such as an HDMI transmitter chip).  I have seen cases where equipment manufacturers actually recommend long HDMI cables.  Sometimes short cables just won't work because of the reflection problems.  Lumagen Radiance video processors is a good example here.