2. digital
  3. 139886-13434

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
Post removed 
riccitone
229 posts
 
I’ve got a comparably modest digital source setup:

Allo Digione RPi
to Schiit Modi Uber 2
to NAD C316BEE
to Tekton Lore speakers

Did an a/b test with each cable upgrade:
no-name cheapo rca analog interconnect to ZU audio mission from dac to amp = huge improvements.

Then the same with digital rca: 
monoprice 1.5 meter to amplifier surgery 1.5 meter from Digione RPi to dac = huge improvements.

in both cases- or at each stage- beyond satisfied, to point of giddy, weird smiles that kind of worried my wife (however, she also noticed the improvements). The degree of improved detail and stage was more than palpable. 

Just wanted to share that that it was even noticed with a far lesser setup than most possess here. Happy Thanksgiving! 🍁

path73
11 posts
 
Maybe the paper referenced below will shed some light on the complexity of jitter for those that believe that a simple value in some clock or DAC datasheet can Trump this effect for good.
Audibility of some forms of jitter on DACs and ADCs have been investigated, but I believe that the improvements that most of us hear when jitter is reduced tend to indicate that audibility thresholds are not so easy to define and greatly depend not only on the technology used inside the chips, but also on the implemented circuitry around those chips (e.g. power supply management).
My 2 cts worth, /patrick

https://statics.cirrus.com/pubs/whitePaper/WP_Specifying_Jitter_Performance.pdf
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
riccitone,
I've experienced that look from my wife as well, LOL.
Running Tekton speakers myself & absolutely love them. 
erik_squires
16,176 posts
 
1. The power of suggestion2. Noise - One cable may be better at rejecting noise than another3. You had a dirty plug and this cleaned it out4. Better impedance matching. Not all cables are up to spec.

While lots of people pooh pooh optical cables, they are ideal for PC outputs as they utterly reject ground loops as well as EMI/RFI noise.

One hidden issue in digital transmission is ground loops which can and do occur and seem to increase jitter levels so high that it causes audible degradation. In an ideal world, all DAC's are isolated from this but not all are. This is also made much worse with switching power supplies like a laptop's wall wart or PC. Sadly, DAC's do not have any indicator of this. There's no light that says "ground loop" or "excessive jitter" and honestly I'd feel a little comforted if they did.

There's no reason to believe that any coaxial cable would be better than any other at reducing ground loops though, my comment was just about how and why Optical can be far superior.

Best,
E
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