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The Importance of the Digital Cable

Good Sunday evening dear friends,

This point of discussion has been on my mind of late, as I have listened carefully to the results. This is a bold statement and discussed ad nauseam here I am sure, though I feel others may be encouraged to explore this more deeply as we share our experiences here.

I’ve had several digital cables, ranging from several coax, to toslink. I have not yet tried a dedicated AES/EBU XLR.

Listening to the Denafrips Pontus, a ladder DAC, fed from an Oppo UDP-205 as transport, I was compelled to try a few different cables, because the results were not as good as expected. I played a few albums; XTC ‘Nonesuch’ - a rather hot recording from the 90’s but very interesting and politically out front. Then an Everett Harp CD that highlights his wonderful sax playing. Then Robben Ford and The Blue Line, the album being ‘handful of Blues’.After that some Arjit Singh, and Tarkan (Turkish music).
The cables running from the DAC to the Pre/amp are Transparent Ultra XL (original). I like these cables because they have a very natural organic sound. They do lack some of the detail up top of some of the best in class and perhaps are a less exciting that some, but over all I love the naturalness, slight warmth in mid-bass, scale and soundstage of their sound.
But things didn’t sound quite right. I can always tell when something isn’t quite right, because it’s harder for me to get involved in the music. Some of the quieter words were too vague, and there was just a general fuzziness and vagueness overall. The soundstage was flatter and resolution of detail was lacking. The Pontus as you know, is a very good DAC, so I knew something was off.

I had the Canare digital cable in place, and decided to switch it out for my Black Cat Veloce. Wow! The sound transformed. Now the DAC truly shined. All the detail returned. The sound was certain and clear. The soundstage was very wide and the vagueness replaced with clarity. The music was now exciting and involving.

This begs the question, how can a digital cable make such a difference? After all, it is transporting a digital binary signal?
Please share your experiences.
AK
4afsanakhan
yuviarora's avatar
yuviarora
537 posts
 
All Digital signals are still electrical in nature. The metal, construction gauge, shielding, or lack there of makes a difference in sound. Copper foil USB cables are detail monsters, and in my experience heads and shoulders better than anything I have tried so far.
I make all my cables, and have tried every combination possible...Pretty much.

I prefer cotton as the shielding, sounds the most natural to my ears. Foil>Solid>Litz>stranded. 
Stranded has the lowest resolution, and has noise problems. 
pauly
1,012 posts
 
I'm totally ignorant as to why they make a difference and am not going to pretend otherwise, but I do know they make a difference as I have heard it with my own ears.

And it's not restricted to Coax and Toslink. I have heard differences in USB cables. 

jond's avatar
jond
5,876 posts
 
I can't tell you why either but I've found the digital cable to make perhaps the most difference of all cable types. I consider myself very lucky to have stumbled upon a used Jorma Digital cable some years back it's truly fantastic.
melm
1,082 posts
 
You write: "After all, it is transporting a digital binary signal?"

Actually that's incorrect.  Like all wires, it is transporting an analog signal consisting of imperfect square waves.  Imperfect because it doesn't have unlimited bandwidth.  How imperfect?  That will depend on how the cable was manufactured.

Beyond that it's a complicated story.  There's loads of information about this on the 'net.  Start using Google on the subject.
ghdprentice
7,179 posts
 
Probably the most unexpected and profound difference I have ever heard was between a CD transport and DAC about thirty years ago. While I had already given up trying to explain why different wires sounded different, I was absolutely positive a digital connection would not depend on the wire, as analog did. When I swapped anyway just to prove it to myself, my jaw dropped… it sounded as if someone had switched components to much high grade ones.


Any inclination left before this incident to “logic out” what I was going to hear was gone after this. I read sonic reviews and listen. Although in all honesty, I put off upgrading to a high quality component streamer (its just a stream of bits, right?) by this stubborn reluctance to think it should matter with digital. Added a good streamer… jaw dropped again.
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