SPDIF Digital Cable Recommendations

Hi Will

how is the LDMS do you like the sound?

And what difference did you find between gold lion and the WE300B you bought.

You have a beautiful system. You should use a S/PDIF cable that equals the quality of your components. So yes, a high-end cable. Cables do make a difference, you want a bit perfect transfer from the streamer to the DAC. It doesn’t have to be high priced, a good design is most important. In addition to design and construction, proper length plays a role in the delivery of data, typically 1.5 to 2 meters.

75ohm SPDIF coax that I have used; Acoustic Zen, Oyaide, Cerious Technologies, and currently using High Fidelity Cables. There was an audible difference between each of them.

The brand I see consistently being recommended is Black Cat.

@willgolf I'm currently using a Hi Diamond Reference AES/EBU which I think is excellent value, about $1k

However the "nuts" seems to be the Shunyata Omega which is around $3k.

Hope to try it out soon. Crystal Cable is also up there but you need to demo them at home.

 BTW, the DAC is a Lampizator Pacific and the Media Server is from Lucas Audio LDMS.  I definitely like the sound of SPDIF vs USB.

 I believe that Spdif versus USB comes down to which one is optimized for the specific music server and DAC. If the designer prioritized SPDIF over USB,  then USB will sound inferior. It's possible that the LDMS server is optimized for SPDIF connection,  if so this will be the best sounding option.

Same logic would apply for the DAC as well. Some designers believe that SPDIF is inherently better sounding than USB. I don't think that there's much doubt a higher quality cable will make its presence felt. Another preference point is BNC connectors versus RCA. I'd confer with the designer/builder for guidance. 

Charles 

Beautiful system.

Yes, probably it will make a difference. The biggest difference I have ever heard was in a digital SP/DIF cable… and it was huge… like component level. But it is component dependent. So like in all things… you have to try. Given your components I would recommend Transparent.

You discovered for yourself the difference between USB and SP/DIF. They are fundamentally different connections… it depends on your DAC and streamer. The USB transmits packets and they have to be unpacked and retimed… they added this because of PCs… SP/DIF has been around forever. On my system with a Aurender W20SE streamer ARC DAC is the two are nearly indistinguishable.