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Do I need an expensive digital cable?

I have been using a fairly inexpensive optical cable to connect my CD transport to my Moon 280D streamer. I was told that an SPDIFcoax cable would sound better. For an experiment I purchased an inexpensive Pangea coax cable. It didn't sound at all because its terminator ends did not fit snugly in my equipment. I consulted chatgbt who often gives me audio advice. It advised that for the short run of 1 meter, an RCA interconnect would work. It did. And sounded much better than the optical. Chatgbt said that RCA interconnect was good enough.

Now, there is a twist to this story that might make those doubters think twice. A digital cable carries packets of information that are rechecked to assure that the streamer is recieving correct information. There is the timing concern, though. But my Moon 280D has an asynchronous DAC with a clock as part of the DAC. Any information sent by my transport, whether it is clocked by the transport or not, will go through the Moon's asynchronous DAC's clock. So ;there shouldn't be a timing problem. Should there?

Can anyone make a case that I should buy a "better" coax cable?

audio-b-dog
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,821 posts
 

@audio-b-dog yes digital cables absolutely make a difference. Pangea is not the cable that will showcase the difference. Step up to a nice cable. 
One of the tried and true workhorses of digital cables is Kimber D60. It’s affordable and will show you what a good digital cable can do. 
Audioquest Diamond is very good. I tried Audience FrontRow Reserve and was blown away. I just didn’t need a coax cable. 
Set aside it’s just 1s and 0s. Keep an open mind. 
 

jjss49's avatar
jjss49
6,920 posts
 

pangea is the house brand of audio advisor, the well known online hifi retailer, been a good outfit for years

pangea as a brand tries to cover the spectrum... from truly beginner audiophile cables that are just a little bit better than the cheapo freebies that come with hifi equipment, to quite well-made higher end cables that have excellent quality terminations and use cardas or audioquest wire/insulation... i would say a $150 to $200 pangea digital spdif cable of the correct termination for your use would be a very decent high end cable that will deliver good sound quality

your other option is to get a true glass optical spdif cable... they are out there and don't cost an arm and a leg for a short run, about a hundred bucks or less

soix
11,230 posts
 

Upgrading from a decent budget to very good RCA digital cable made at least as much of an improvement as upgrading interconnects/speaker cables if not more.  Ignore it at your peril. 

audio-b-dog's avatar
audio-b-dog OP
777 posts
 

@audphile1 @jjss49 @soix 

I do believe in good cables. I have not had the money to purchase the best. I usually use mid-tier Audioquest, with one exception. I have a very expensive kimber interconnects between my preamp and amp. I know good cables makes a difference. My extra money has mostly gone to purchase better equipment, but if I had unlimited funds, I would use the most expensive cable.

My question, however, is of a technical naturel. In certain situations a high-end coax cable would logically make sense to reduce jitter. For example, if my data were being clocked by the transport and that timing was traveling across the cable. That would be true in most situations. It is not true in my situation, though. 

The data packets are always going to be correct because that's the way data transfer works. The transport sends a data packet and the streamer tells the transport what the data packet contains If the data packet became jumbled then the streamer would ask for it to be sent again. Jitter, however, is in the time domain and the streamer would not ask for that to be checked. So the time domain could be all screwed up, resulting in jitter.

In my case, however, the clock on the DAC in the streamer always reclocks the data coming across the cable. So, how would a more expensive cable help? And, from a strictly empirical sense, do any of you have a streamer (or DAC or whatever you would use the coax cable for) hooked to an asynchronous DAC? If so, have you compared a simple RCA cable (like the one I'm using) to a decent coax cable. Do you know as a fact that you're right, or are you simply following "common knowledge"?

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