HDMI (i2s) recommendations for Denafrips Gaia -> Terminator

Thanks for the info. I'm tempted by the Tubulus, but I'm hoping to use a shorter length since I've heard from other Denafrips owners that longer connections can have issues. 

I assume that the AQ Vodka you had was not the Vodka 48? How would you compare this to the Tubulus? I'm not considering the Vodka, but as I mentioned in my OP, I am thinking of one of AQ's higher end cables. But I would just-as-soon spend less if there is a better (or at least comparable) option for less money. 

I've never really been an AQ fan (from a price-performance perspective), but their volume (and factory machinery) allows them to make cables with very high build quality, and I think an i2s cable is going to be particularly sensitive to this since i2s was never intended to be used for box-to-box communication and has no error correction. 

I have an AQ Diamond USB cable that does sound better than other USB cables I've tried.

Actually it is the vodka 48. Im not using it for audio primarily though. I'm using dedicated i2s hdmi cables mentioned above for music. The dedicated hdmi i2s cables can't be used for video. 

I also currently have the denafrips gaia on loan lol.. But not using a termy or termy plus. Hdmi i2s up to 2m is fine. I was using the tubulus cable between the gaia to my rockna wavelight dac with no issues. 

That's good to hear that you didn't have problems with the longer tubulus cable. Did you have a change to compare the Vodka 48 to the Tubulus?

My Gaia should arrive Monday or Tuesday and I'm going to try it out with the AES cable I have first, and maybe a cheapo HDMI cable, before I decide how to proceed. 

Thanks for your comments and recommendations. 

For I2S, length of the cable is the most critical performance factor. You want to go very short e.g., no more than 6 inches.

Sure, a longer cable will work, but the I2S standard was designed to communicate PCM audio data between integrated circuits in an electronic device, not between external peripherals.

Longer cables can result in differences in propagation delay between the clock line and data line, which can result in synchronization problems between the SCK, WS and data signals (mainly at high sampling frequencies and bitrates).

Since the I2S bus doesn't have any error detection mechanism, this can introduce significant decoding errors.

I am aware of the issues with i2s, and agree that keeping the cable length short is desirable.

Most devices that support I2S between boxes (including the Denafrips products) use additional buffering (generally LVDS - low voltage differential signaling) which can support cable lengths of 2-3 meters.

As you point out, the longer the cable length, the more likely that slight differences in cable length and propagation delay will cause skew between the clock and data signals. Also, LVDS only has a modest amount of common-mode noise rejection, so the longer the cable, the more likely external noise will interfere with the signal. 

With my DCC and DAC on shelves one above the other, I can get away with a 0.75m cable (even one that is fairly stiff), so that's what I'm looking for.

I'm a little leery about buying a hand-made cable since the consistency of the individual conductors lengths, twisting, and shielding will all have an impact on the amount of skew between signals.

I think this is the only type of cable used in audio where clock and data are transmitted separately and where there is no error detection/correction, so example-to-example differences (particularly for a hand-made cable) may be more significant for this type of cable than any other type of audio cable.