How crucial is the quality of a digital cable?

YES   Clock error is the bane of digital audio and cannot be properly fixed.  Analogue has its own clock because the signal is transmitted in real time and never leaves real time.  Digits are transmitted in blibs and blobs with no time control.  Once the real, analogue, sound is chopped into billions of pieces, it can never be put back together correctly.  No clock can perfectly replicate time itself.

It seems to me the different sounds people are hearing with different digital cables are merely different errors.

Perfect sound forever?     For never.

A cable favors the sound to your liking.  As an manufacturer of tube audio components, we are exposed to many companies and have tried many digital cables.  Your system most likely will respond to a cable differently that what other people's experience was in their system.  We partnered with a speaker manufacturer five years ago at CAF and won the best of show award.  Funny thing is that we forgot to bring a digital cable and used an old Adcom copper IC that we ripped in half and used that cable for the show.  It is actually a nice sounding cable.  My advise is to try a few different brands and construction maybe a silver, copper, just to get started with and learn how they impact the sound in your system.  Then find a good one and be done with the cable search.

Happy Listening.  

clearthinker

Clock error is the bane of digital audio and cannot be properly fixed.

If that’s true, how do you account for the many extraordinary recordings that have been made directly to digital?

Analogue has its own clock because the signal is transmitted in real time and never leaves real time.

I’m an analog guy, but you’re not making sense. Wow & flutter affects both time and pitch. No analog system is completely immune from speed errors that are many times greater than the errors in any decent digital clock. In a sense, analog systems are never quite in "real time."

Don't get me wrong - I prefer analog. But there's nothing to be gained by pretending it's better than it is, or that digital is worse than it is.

Don’t get me wrong - I prefer analog. But there’s nothing to be gained by pretending it’s better than it is, or that digital is worse than it is.

@cleeds Very wise words. And I’m encouraged by members here who have many more $$$ than I invested in both their vinyl and streaming sources have found streaming, properly implemented, can give vinyl a run for its money and possibly more. I reference several posts by @ghdprentice whose posts and experience I find to be very level-headed and experience based. As improvements in digital technology continue to improve at a fast pace and costs for digital processing continue to drop, I can only surmise it won’t be too long before one can create a near state-of-the-art digital source that rivals even the best vinyl rigs for pennies on the dollar. In any event, let’s not lose sight of that, whatever your choice of source material, it’s a very exciting time to be an audiophile!

You can spend $10 or $10k for digital cable, but which one will sound better, you never know if not looking directly onto those point blank. It means that those saying that there are no differences are 99.999% correct leaving 0.0001% for wrong so do your math. It helps to test and bust science and assumptions.