Inter Connects - What I know and don't know

@wisccheese 

FYI. I am friends with dealer. He let me try a set of Nordost Odin 2 for a few weeks. I actually did not own them. After a couple weeks I had to take them out of my system as they were so good, I was starting to wonder how I could scrape together and buy a set every year. My average component cost is $20K…buying $17K interconnects… well, i’m retired… this is not something I should be considering. But I was…. They are really amazing.

OP -- I would start with a lower cost balanced cable and, as others have suggested, try borrowing something expensive to compare.  But I would only do that comparison after living with the Atmasphere amps for a while.  Also highly recommend prioritizing budget for a preamp before pricey cables.  That's going to make a much bigger difference in the sound quality you hear.  I've tried the streamer (with volume attenuation) into the DAC directly into the amp and didn't love the sound at all.  If you had something like a Lumin U2, maybe that would sound good with Leedh processing but I think you're giving up a lot doing it through Bluesound Node. Sounds like you're getting a Burson to try -- haven't heard it but better than no preamp.

I'm really curious about your bake-off between Decware Zen Triode and Atmasphere digital monoblocks with your Tektons.  I can't imagine they'll sound anything alike and seems like an odd comparison, but very interested in the results.

Have fun!

@atmasphere

Hi, I asked T+A about whether or not their DAC 200 is AES48 compliant and they responded:

"The AES48 standard was paid attention to when designing this DAC. There is a small difference, though: the connection between pin1 and enclosure is not direct but via a 100nF cap. This cap has no negative effect on EMI or shielding."

However, their specs state 2.5V SE and 5V Balanced i.e. the typical doubling of output for non compliant balanced output. ("High level (RCA) 0...2,5 Veff / 22 Ohms, balanced (XLR) 0...5,0 Veff / 22 Ohms")

What do you make of their statement? As per your post above it sounds like this DAC is NOT AES48 ...

@nquery My guess is that it isn't.

If you think about a simple audio transformer that has an input and output, and the output is connected to the XLR connection, that transformer only has a winding driving the output and so there are only 2 wires for each end of the winding. One of them is tied to pin 2 and the other to pin3. You can see that grounding pin 3 to pin 1 would not change the output level, and you can see that the output of pin 2 is produced with respect to its opposite, pin 3.

There is no connection to ground- its only used for shielding. So its perplexing to me how the output voltage would double if both pin 2 and pin 3 are used as opposed to the RCA connection. Clearly an output transformer isn't used (although a lot of solid state pro audio gear does use transformers).

So my surmise is that in order for the RCA connection to work, the XLR connection that corresponds to it (IOW, if both are the non-inverting outputs) will be the same as the RCA. A digital voltmeter will reveal what that is about- there will be zero Ohms between the signal pin of the RCA and pin 2 or pin 3 of the XLR...

@69zoso69 
Iconoclast Cables has white papers that describe how they designed their cables- gives one a basic background on audio cabling design and cost.  This is a good place to understand the complexities of audio cable design and why some are costly.