Do I need an expensive digital cable?

@audio-b-dog 

You are going to try a $14, 75ohm cable as a starting point to determine whether a coax cable can improve the sound.  I don’t think this is going to reveal much.  I was skeptical of the value add for digital cables and did a blind test of a wide range of cables with another listener and there was a wide range of performance and the differences were not subtle.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/yes-digital-cables-matter-too/post?highlight=Knownothing&postid=2542107#2542107

The least expensive cable in the test was the bottom tier Pangea offering which did not perform well compared to all of the other cables tested. My reference at the time was the DHLabs D750 and I was disappointed in it’s performance compared with more expensive models from Nordost and Chord. I ended up finding a higher model in the Chord line up that cost as much used as my streamer did new and I have absolutely no regrets.

if you watch the YouTube video about streamers referenced in my last post, the narrator goes into great detail about the importance of electrical noise affecting analog circuits in your DAC and other parts of your system downstream.  I think one if not the main thing good coax cables do for sound quality is help keep noise out of the signal path.  If sound comes out, the digital signal has been preserved.  If one cable sounds better than another, it’s because it is likely doing something to reduce your system’s noise floor.  A $14 cable is not going to tell you very much about that.

kn

Get yourself a CeriousTech Lumniscate cable and specifically an AES/EBU cable if your SSP or preamp will support it. Utterly transformative. Not inexpensive but prices fair in the context of the massive bump in SQ. I use from my Antipodes K22 player out to my Lyngdorf MP-60 and out to my Accuphase A-80. 

As we get older, our wealth increases and our ability to process and comprehend new information decreases. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone that audiophiles would rather buy overpriced "digital cables" than educate themselves about digital audio.

Thank you for all your inputs. The reason I ordered the Purist Genesis Luminist digital cable was that it received decent reviews in the mid-tier category. My budget was around $150 and that's how much it was. It wasn't a cheap Audioquest that @audphile1 said would not be better than the $14 one I ordered. 

Why did I need a budget if I could return more expensive cables? Because if it sounds better, I'll probably keep it, and right now my wife/accountant is in no mood for stereo expenses. I spent a lot of money over the last few years on Sonus Faber speakers and the Moon streamer, plus while we were into the giddy tens of thousands, my dealer threw in a lot of expensive cables. So, I'm pretty much on a stereo budget now. Real world, folks, for any of you who have wives or children or grandchildren, as I do. 

Let's see if either 70 ohm digital cable performs better than the 50 ohm analogue cable I'm now using, and which sounds awfully good. I'm now listening to Bernstein conduct Shostakovich's 7th symphony, and I couldn't be happier. But, of course, I was happy listening to music on my $300 rig when I was 20.

The big question is does this relatively modestly priced Moon 280D really have a fully asycnchronous DAC. Moon says it does and chatgbt says it does. I think my experiment should tell.