Difference in sound between copper and silver digital cables?

Do you mean after they’re broken in? Before or after cryo? Yes I know what you’re thinking, “Are you hot dogging me?”

Williewonka 1-3-2020
The geometry of the cables is an advance Helix design, so that probably made a significant contribution to the performance of the cable.

Steve, I always have great respect for the very extensive work you’ve done with cables over the years. But in this case I’m wondering how or if you might have established what IMO is the requisite 75 ohm "characteristic impedance" for an unbalanced digital cable, using the helix geometry you have used for your analog interconnects.

Also, IMO, if the characteristic impedance of the cable was not known to be an accurately controlled 75 ohms the sonic consequences of the resulting mismatch to the impedances of the components being connected figure to be even more dependent than usual on the designs of those specific components, and probably also on the length of the particular cable. Making the sonic effects of the particular cable pretty much random and unpredictable among different digital applications, IMO.

Best regards,
-- Al

@david_ten - Ooooops sorry about that….

@williewonka Steve: within the parameters of (the "experiment" / components / systems) you tested them, correct? Thanks.

Yes - I was testing with digital audio files up to and including 24/192. They connected a Schiit Bifrost DAC and a Musical Fidelity V-Link192 USB-S/PDIF Converter and an Apple PC as the source of the digital files via USB.

The amp was a NAIM 5i Mk II and the speakers are the Gershman Acoustics Sonogram model

I could not discern any degradation in audio quality at those sample rates, higher sample rates may have issues, but I am unable to test ot those rates.

I did drop down to the copper Harmony RCA and there was also no degradation, but I the silver plating on the copper harmony may wear off after 30 insertions, so I do not use them for anything.

My Silver Harmony RCA’s had been inserted around 40 times to that point without wearing to the copper underneath the plating. But this very much depends on the quality of the socket they are plugged into.

For all analogue cables I only use Harmony Absolute RCA’s

Hope that helps

@williewonka   Steve: YES.   Very much so. Thank you!

@almarg - I too wondered about this aspect of digital cables design.

It all started about 5 years ago when KLE Innovaitons contacted me about their products.

I built a very good analogue cable and wondered  how it would perform in the digital realm - so I simply tried it and  it worked great.

I contacted Keith Louie Eichman and we exchanged several emails on the subject. But although he assured me that his RCA's are perfect for digital application because of their impedance, he would not reveal the actual impedance. So I am unable to comment on this aspect in any further detail.

Apparently - they work extremely well with 50, 75 and even 110 ohm applications.

After a lot of reading from the web - could it be possible that the impedance of the RCA only has to be greater than 50,75,101 ohms? 

Perhaps it is the design of the actual RCA ?
 i.e.the neutral connection is very small compared to other RCA's 

I have tried a few different KLE Innovations RCA's in digital applications  and they all worked extremely well.

Sorry I could not provide more details - Steve