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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
antialiased's avatar
antialiased
46 posts
 

Expensive is relative.

If you’re stressed out about a cable being the weakest link, stick with a professional cable like the Canare LV-61s with Nuetrik BNC Terminal and use an Canare 75 Ohm BNC to RCA Adapter. This is much preferred to using pre terminated RCA because most brand preterminated RCA’s can’t be true 75 Ohm.

You can get a custom made lengths at a very reasonable price and use that as a solid baseline.

Cables testing takes alot of experience and a very long time trial to really understand what it’s doing to your sound. The main variable is you and what kind of sound and level of clarity you’re looking for.

With more experience you’ll define for yourself what is an expensive cable.

Me, I use to think $150 was expensive but I’m way past that. That said, I still use Canare Cables in my system due to synergy.

knownothing
1,821 posts
 

@audio-b-dog you did say you were trying a different tier cable to test against the lower priced model, I missed that. Good idea. Will be interested to see what your tests reveal in your system.

kn

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

In this test, the RCA analogue 50 ohm interconnect is the bottom cable. The $15 75 ohm digital cable will let me know if there is any difference between the analogue and digital cable. The "high-end" cable that normally sells for $249 (I think) has been reviewed as a good, solid mid-tier cable. If there is no difference between the analogue cable and the top digital cable, then I would say that the asynchronous DAC is fully asynchronous, clocking all inputs, including SPDIF. 

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

BTW, I have tested cables before and can hear the differeence, although it can take very serious listening and a long time. Perhaps days. But I can hear the difference.

The thing about cable is will I hear the difference when I leave the room for a while and come back? Will I know if I'm listening to a mid-tier or high-tier? Focusing on differences is very different than listening to your stereo for pleasure. I am fairly sure that if I went from my mid-tier cable to Nordost's most expensive cable that I would probably know, after leaving my listening room for an hour or a night, that the uber-expensive cable was in the system. But it would probably be $20,000 plus, and for that I could buy a really good streamer. 

mike4597's avatar
mike4597
303 posts
 

+1 on Soix regarding even a modestly upgraded cable.  I upgraded from  generic cable to connect my CD player (used as a transport) to my DAC to a DHLabs RCA coax, and the resulting improvement was quite noticeable.  Cost was $230 but they offer a 10% discount to first time purchasers at their website.  Both the USB and Ethernet cable connecting my streamer also are DH Labs.

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