Do I need an expensive digital cable?

@erniesch 

Having studied about networks when I worked in the computer industry, I argued exactly what you're arguing about network packets being checked, so all network packets are the same no matter what cable you use. I also made the argument that my DAC was asynchronous and reclocked the signal. I argued that as long as I could hear the music, a 50 ohm interconnect would work as well as a 75 ohm digital cable. If the packets were getting through then they were being error correcxted.

To test my theory I bought a $14 digital cable and a $249 digital cable. The $249 digital cable won, at least by my ears. The interconnect caused bad jitter. The $14 cable was much closer to the $249 cable, but the $249 cable was the best.

Why? It has much better shielding and its wiring is more complex? I don't know. But I do know that my bias was for all the cables to sound the same. That would have been my bet based on the networking theory that I knew. Anyway, the $14 cable is available to anyone who wants it.

@audphile1 

With chip DACs your working within the limitations of the chip. There’s a reason why ESS based Bluesound is limited to DSD256

Not in the example i quoted.  The ESS chips handle DSD1024 natively, see ES9039Q2M Datasheet. The limitation is with the Bluesound designers.

I am particularly sensitive to DSD being down-sampled.  My Reavon universal disk player sounded excellent on any disk source except SACD.  It was obvious to me after a few seconds play.  I checked the data sheets of the Burr Brown dacs and they did not mention DSD.  I emailed Reavon and discovered they down-sampled DSD to CD quality.  The machine is just fine as a transport, outputting DSD over HDMI, but I wasted a grand on two useless dacs.

@richardbrand 

I'll have to admit that you'll have to explain Bluesound to me. I do know, though, that the ESS chip in my Moon 280D handles both DSD and MQA. i have spent a bit of time comparing the same album on Tidal and Qobuz. Tidal seems a bit more "musical," i.e. laid back and relaxed. Qobuz has a more discrete sound in which attacks are better emphasized. There are a lot of othe differences I won't go into here.

My point being that I can hear the difference between DSD and MQA through the Moon 280D. As for my transport, I play SACD and DVDA straight into my preamp, using the Burr Brown chip. I remember the review in which John Atkinson said he did not hear a great difference between the regular CD function and the hi rez function on the Burr Brown chip in the McCormack UDP-1. I think he was right, although I can hear a much higher quality on some hi rez disks.

@richardbrand 

My 4 door sedan is capable of reaching a speed of 155mph. But it will perform much worse than a new porsche 911 turbo S at that speed. And that’s why it’s capped at 130mph (not that I ever drive that fast in case we have some LEO reading this)
That type of limitation is what I was referring to. So the designers made a most likely the best choice within the given architecture/platform. 

@audphile1 

Are you referring to those limitations with the ESS chip or older Burr Brown? The ESS chip in my Moon 280D seems to handle everything with aplomb. It will reproduce files at 192 kHz sampling with a 24 bit word length, and trust me I hear it. At that resolution it might as well be a record, except it lacks a record's air. And that concept is almost inexplicable. If you'fe heard it, you know what I'm talking about. I've known audiophiles who can't hear it. They can be all the happier without the fuss of analogue.