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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
 
@audioengr

”This is a fact supported by hundreds of reviews in Stereophile where the measurements werevery poor and yet the review with music was stellar.”

Because the review was good the measurements must not show the whole picture (even though JA’s don’t, like no distortion measurements)? The reviews are done sighted with knowledge of the company and price. To suggest the reviews being positive must only correlate to performing better than the measurements suggest is just silly.

Also, saying the Toslink measurements aren’t valid because they are taken after the DAC thus shows you agree the DAC can reduce jitter to below audibility. And no, it is valid for my argument, as any differences that would show up would indicate that the differences between them is large enough that the DAC couldn’t reduce the jitter to the same amount.
celander's avatar
celander
1,503 posts
 
Consider me biased, but one’s opinion that one can’t discern differences in audio SQ from audio streams with different levels of jitter—based upon listening for such differences with an iPhone—does not carry much weight to draw the conclusion that such differences in SQ would not be readily heard in a decent audio system in an open air environment. 
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@celander  
 
You again misinterpret what I said. I said even on my phone all the jitter values with the test tone were audible, except one of them. So, I invited Steve to take the test with the music samples to see if he could hear it. I never suggested that if I couldn’t hear it on my phone, that it wasn’t audible.
cbrehm
15 posts
 
Could do without the political references. Everyone enjoy some good groves this evening and be thankful for our many blessings.
celander's avatar
celander
1,503 posts
 
Julian,

Yep, I spend my evenings enjoying test tones on my audio system.

I correctly understood you stating that you could not discern the jitter level differences with authentic music in the stream. And you then concluded what I stated in my previous post. 
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