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Why does my DAC sound so much better after upgrading digital SPDIF cable?

I like my Mps5 playback designs sacd/CD player but also use it as a DAC so that I can use my OPPO as a transport to play 24-96 and other high res files I burn to dvd-audio discs.

I was using a nordost silver shadow digital spdif cable between the transport and my dac as I felt it was more transparent and better treble than a higher priced audioquest digital cable a dealer had me audition.

I recently received the Synergistic Research Galileo new SX UEF digital cable.  Immediately I recognized that i was hearing far better bass, soundstage, and instrument separation than I had ever heard with high res files (non sacd),

While I am obviously impressed with this high end digital cable and strongly encourage others to audition it, I am puzzled how the cable transporting digital information to my DAC from my transport makes such a big difference.

The DAC take the digital information and shapes the sound so why should the cable providing it the info be so important. I would think any competently built digital cable would be adequate....I get the cable from the DAC to the preamp and preamp to amp matter but would think the cable to the DAC would be much less important.

I will now experiment to see if using the external transport to send red book CD files to my playback mps5 sounds better than using the transport inside the mps5 itself.

The MPS5 sounds pretty great for ca and awesome with SACD so doubt external transport will be improvement for redhook cds


128x128karmapolice
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@boxer12

i don’t have a golden ear, that is very true. However, not a single person tested professionally/scientifically has been able to hear jitter below a nanosecond, so to say that 0.0012ns (22psec) of jitter is audible just isn’t true.

Jitter introduced by Toslink is not an issue, even without a DAC reducing it. With a DAC reducing it, the problem is non-existent; when doing a J-Test (pretty much worst case scenario of jitter), the $100 AudioQuest DragonFly Black had a jitter reduction of no worse than -105dBFS; meaning you could playback 35dB (average noise floor in a treated room) to 140dB and have no jitter present.
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
Forgot to add, in order for any jitter to be present for 16-bit (not factoring in jitter reduction by the DAC nor dithering), it needs to be less than 346psec ((1000000000000/44100)/(2^16) ).  
  

So, since <346psec is litterally not present for 16-bit, without reduction or dither, making the claim that going from  22psec to 7psec was drastically audible should now be clearly evident as bogus (placebo). 
 
And yes, there is no benefit from going higher than 16-bit, which can cover say 35dB to 126dB without dither, and 25dB to 145dB with noise shaped dither.
celander's avatar
celander
1,503 posts
 
+1, @nonoise, for acute perception of the discourse here. 
-1, @audioengr, for making a stupid political analogy that adversely affects my opinion of you. 
-2, @mzkmxcv, for being a nerdy troll here. 
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 
mzkmxcv,

Question for you: Do you purchase everything based on specs alone or you trust your senses? If the former, then you are definitely not only in the minority but most likely not getting your best bang for the buck. If the latter - which sounds unlikely, then you need to get your hearing checked. 
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@Kalali

If specs show me that any further reduction in jitter would be inaudible, then I wouldn’t spend time nor money looking at a re-clocker or anything, as it’s not theoretical, but actually impossible for there to be any audible improvement if the current jitter is below the noise floor.

For say speakers, I’ll look for speakers that measure close to ideal, and then try to demo (as if my room is overly reflective or narrow, I wouldn’t want a speaker with a super wide soundstage for instance, as that would cause too many reflections; the same goes for a narrower soundstage in a wide room).
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