Customizing sound through digital interconnect

Hi Amfi, so you are saying that by altering the shape of the square wave you can change the sonic characteristics of the digital interconnect? Please elaborate. According to the theory digital data stream is either corrupt or not. Digital is discrete, analog is continuous. By changing digital data stream one is not able to predict how the analog music signal will sound.

Chris

Dazzdax, DA conversion is not digital, it is analog. This is not the same as computers, which is not time critical, and if the data is corrupt the CPU can simply request the data again. In a DAC, if the datastream is jittered, it will affect the conversion to analog.

According to my reading (I am no digital engineer) it is possible to smear the square wave to such an extent that it barely rises above the noise, and it is possible to introduce new spurious waves by the summation of reflected waves with smeared waves. You do not necessarily hear a "tick", because this is only one packet of 44,100 signals per second, but if it happens often enough it will change the tone.

Tab110s, I know it is good enough when the next step in improvement will end up costing an unreasonable amount of money.

Hi Amfi, please elaborate the following section:

"...and it is possible to introduce new spurious waves by the summation of reflected waves with smeared waves. You do not necessarily hear a "tick", because this is only one packet of 44,100 signals per second, but if it happens often enough it will change the tone."

I know only a few things about digital data conversion/transmission because I'm a totally uninitiated person with regard to this subject, but if a 16-bits DAC is fed with 17-bits information, I think there would be severe timing problems, if this is possible at all.

Chris

Dazzdax, think of digital bits as square waves rising off the noise floor. The noise floor can be raised by reflections and other random noise in the interconnect. The tops of the square waves can be smeared by skin effect. The noise is random, and can sometimes sum up to form another wave that makes it past the threshold (and is read as a bit by the DAC). It may be read as a very jittered 1 where a zero should be. But in any case, it can't be good.

Amfi, so if a digital cable sounds "different" than other digital cables, even if the sound has a more "natural" presentation (warmer, more fleshed out midrange, silkier highs and greater PRaT), this cable isn't a very good cable in theory because of the time smearing? The next question is: how can one determine if a digital cable is a "good" cable? Most audiophiles are judging by ear whether a cable sounds good or not and not by using oscilloscopes.

Chris