1. Home
  2. digital
  3. 197593-137065

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

@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.

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,833 posts
 

@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. 

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

@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.

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,833 posts
 

@audio-b-dog no. I was referring to the limitations within bluesound design using ESS dac chipset. 

westcoastaudiophile
819 posts
 

@audio-b-dog "I bought a $14 digital cable and a $249 digital cable"

- details, such as manufacturers, cable, connectors etc., will be helpful to translate your study, since price is not a technical / quality metric! in may cases you can get very good cable at lower price, specifically if you buy cable model from high volume manufacturing lot! 

"The interconnect caused bad jitter"

- what is bad jitter? any examples of good jitter?

 

More to discover