"engineers in the Stereophile letters” LOL
these guys are failed engineers! real engineers create/design things’ we are talking about!
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?
From what I have seen so far, I am not convinced digital cables make a difference. This reviewer has made many videos about different USB cables and described how they sound different. However, when he and his cohorts had to do a blind test, none of them could reliably tell the differences and identify the expensive USB cables. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfuyioIgKI&t=51s I am not claiming to be right. I am just saying as someone with a ~$50k system, I have not yet seen enough evidence to spend $500+ on a USB cable for my system. |
This will probably work just fine. https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/cable/audioquest-forest-digital-rca-cable/ I can't believe you're all still patronizing this guy. He's completely out to lunch you know. Rationalizes everything you say to him! |