Digital Bottom Feeding


Okay, I’m bored. I have a good digital front end. Kimber D60 cable, Schiit Gugnier, Audiolab CDT 600 transport. But I’m sitting at home looking for something to do. I decided to see how cheap digital cables compare to my D60 which is a silver cable, quite dynamic and detailed. Over a period of time I acquired a Blue Jeans Digital Coax for about twenty bucks on Amazon, Also their gray colored Silver calble for $24 and a Cable Solutions one meter from Ebay for $38. Later I tried an Audio Advisor Pangea for $95 and a Kimber 30 for a bit over $100. Both of these later cables are returnable at some point. First observation is they are quite good. Judging the BJC coax as better than the Silver with a bigger sound stage. The Cable Solutions is a very capable cable as is both the Kimber and AA cables. The AA Pangea cable has a noticeably greater weight and warmth than the other. Not a great amount but it’s there if your system sounds thin. I’d be foolish to make any absolute statements as to whether these inexpensive cables would sound better than what you have now but all have return policies so why not play while you are under ouse arrest? Some cables are marked directional and some are not. Those unmarked cable should be tried both ways and marked for presence if any. Back when I made cables, directionality was caused when the shielding was attached at only one end of the cable instead of both RCAS. In a single ended grounding, over the year the grounded end mostly seemed to sound best at the source rather than the terminus of the signal. Lastly, I got a sale notice from Crutchfield that the Sony BDP S6700 blue ay disk player was on sale for half price from $200 to just under a hundred bucks. I also noticed that it had a coax digital out. So I got one to try as a transport. Light weight and plastic a plenty. The things sounds quite good. Not broken in yet and is not likely to be soon because there is no function for repeating the disk. I’ll just have to play it as i can and hope it opens up a bit. That said I was surprised at the out of the box performance. All the may not be your cup of tea but I’m having fun. The BJC cable and the Kimber 30 are quite impressive as are the other two. Who knows a BJ Silver might work for you. I took the time to break in all cables for 100 hours. Once broken in, reversing the cable only takes a short time to sound it’s best.
One last thing. I ordered and returned two digital cables in the $350 price range. The BJ cable beat both of them. 
fredcdobbs
I should add it has been my experience that, if one considers the environment within which the system is to be used and uses due diligence in selecting compatible components how good a budget system can sound.
I also should further add that even the most expensive of my systems might be considered budget by many here.
I would agree Mahler. Past a certain price point, not exceptionally high, digital is more about getting the flavor you like as opposed to getting more detail out of the bits. With a vinyl setup, the diminishing returns point is much higher. If your flavor is vinyl though, you may be happier with a lower end vinyl system than a high end digital.


“An inexpensive turntable/cartridge into a budget integrated amp with built in phono preamp just doesn’t give anywhere near the satisfaction of a decent budget CDP/DAC or streamer into that same amp”.

+2, @mahler123.
I went through this very recently. After living with a good digital front end for a while, I got into Analog so I started out with a reasonable investment of $5K with TT/Cart and outboard phono. After living with this setup for a month, I went back to my digital and realize the analog sound was nowhere close to my digital.

You have to spend considerably more with Analog for an emotionally engaging musical experience.
The OP missed the best inexpensive USB cable out there. Monolith by Monoprice USB Digital Audio Cable. Silverplated solid core. Needs some break-in.  Compare to Audioquest.