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?
@richardbrand +1 for Presto. I could not see your virtual system? You say you use HDMI connections everywhere, if you have a great DAC and your gear supports USB that might work better for your streaming - IIS over HDMI cables is sending the clock over the cable, your DAC's clocking is derived from the source component plus the possibility of noise and jitter. Presto's material is very often better than CD, and also (when 96 kHz or higher) better than SACD; SACD is about 24 bit 80 kHz equivalent. Presto has been my primary source for downloads, I live in rural VT, the coax feeding my house runs through the trees and so I lose the internet far too often. |
My virtual system is so virtual I have not recorded it here In my real main system, my DAC function is provided by a Marantz AV8802 pre-processor which contains eight 2-channel AKM dacs. These natively process Direct Stream Digital (DSD) for a total of 16-channels. Of these, I use nine when supported by the source, such as immersive disks from 2L - the Nordic Sound. (Not available from Presto My HDMI cables are only used for HDMI I know this will be controversial, but I see no point in using IIS (I2S) over any sort of cable, except to avoid HDMI licence fees. The HDMI fee structure does favour big manufacturers, so I can understand why small manufacturers look for alternatives. But I2S was designed to connect two chips on a circuit board, and the clock signal attenuates and smears when sent over a cable. I always listen to SACD (mainly classical) in multi-channel mode, unless it is a rare 2-channel disk. Same for Pure Audio Blu-ray. I don't think streaming has got there yet. In my opinion, there is no point comparing DSD and PCM in terms of equivalent bits and rates - they use bits completely differently. I don't think any dac handling PCM actually gets close to 24-bit resolution. DSD is much simpler for dacs to implement. Having said that, I know many classical SACDs are recorded in high resolution PCM for easy of editing before being converted to DSD for delivery. Caveat: None of my comments apply to pop/rock multi-miked recordings where mixing is performed post-performance. |
It depends! If you have an external clock - that cable matters - a lot. This clock controls the timing of the internal d to a conversion process, so any jitter affects SQ. That cable is the most expensive one in the digital part of my system. If you are using I2S - over an HDMI cable or RJ45 - it matters a lot, once again timing data is being transmitted over the cable. If you are using Toslink - stop (except possibly to hook up your TV). If you are using S/PDIF Coax - possibly. The cable must be "decent" - 75 ohm, shielded. Then it depends on the implementation of the S/PDIF in your DAC. If the DAC implements a good buffer, isolation and reclocking, then an OK cable will sound as good as a superb one. In "olden days" then the cable was critical as the DAC's clock was derived from the input data stream. If your DAC still does this then the cable matters a lot. With USB - the cable needs to be good enough that the received data is correct, jitter is probably irrelevant as the data presented to the actual d to a conversion has been buffered and timing is solely dependent on the DACs clock. But then there is the electrical noise that might be picked up by the cable. Then it depends on how well the interface was implemented, does it provide isolation so that electrical noise does not affect the DAC, unless the noise level is comparable to the signal level which could change the data? If there is any weakness in that aspect then the shielding or filtering of the cable matters. My DAC is the Esoteric K-01XDSE wherein the engineers went to extreme lengths to isolate the d to a conversion process from the effects of jitter and noise on the input; I tried switching the Cardas USB cable for one that had come with a printer and could detect no change in any aspect of SQ given intense critical listening. In my layout the cable is in a pretty benign electrical environment, well separated from power leads etc. YMMV. |
. I suppose I should, because it is very different from usual North American practice!
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in accordance with their design goals.