regular interconnect for digital signal transfer

Thank you for your comments, gentlemen.

For those reading this who may not be aware, it is worth noting that the Van den Hul First Ultimate cable appears to have been designed with a "characteristic impedance" of 75 ohms.

That is the correct value for proper impedance matching for transmission of both unbalanced S/PDIF digital audio signals, and consumer-format analog video signals (component video and composite video).

Best regards,
-- Al

In any given instance the IC may outperform the digital cable, regardless of theory.

I should have mentioned that I am a VDH dealer, although since I have sold 2 pairs and a Digital cable in the last 2 years the may have forgotten me at Bluebird. The Digital cable is quite good also and I am going to get a couple more myself when I get up the next order. While the Opti-Coupler comes in 1.5 both the Digi-Coupler and the MC-Silver are cirrently listed in 1M and .6M only; this does not mean that there are not 1.5s floating around.

Stan, you probably have better information than appears on their website, but fwiw the Digi-Coupler and the MC Silver IT MkII are both listed there as being available in 1.5m lengths.

Also, the First Ultimate is listed as NOT being available in lengths longer than 1m, except "on special request; these will not be accepted for return." FYI, my strong suspicion is that the reason is that it has extremely high resistance per unit length (compared to most cables), in both the center conductor and the shield/return conductor.

In longer lengths the high shield resistance would cause ground loop problems with many components, whether the application is analog, digital, or video.

Also, the high center conductor resistance would cause significant signal loss at longer lengths in digital and video applications, where a low impedance (75 ohms) has to be driven.

Best regards,
-- Al