Amarra for iTunes at RMAF...

Interesting point about optical. Optical has a bad rap based partly on early poor implementations and partly on ignorance. The main issue is reflections and so there are many small issues to deal with when constructing a good optical cable.

Just as people come to something new like computer audio and assume one implementation will be as good as another, the same applies to something like an optical cable and ignorance leads them to believe they will all sound the same, so they only try a cheapie. The terminations and connections really have to be done with high precision to avoid reflections, and the outer layer of the cable must not reflect light, and you should try to avoid the cable going through tight turns. But done right they are, as you say, superior to using wire. Cleaner and faster.

You have got me thinking about Firewire now.

Antipodes_audio,

The firewire connection is worrying too. The BS is just starting there too. I am not sure if firewire 800 suffers the same issues as 400, regarding the total length of cable ( I think the longest 400 is 5m in length).

I was surprised at how Amarra worked so well over firewire, but does the quality of the cable itself cause problems? I hope we are not going to get ripped off again by snake oil cable manufacturers for firewire & USB audio cables. I have seen a few expensive ones already.

DCS use firewire as a DSD connection, and the cable quality proved to be quite important there. I dont know if this is still the case with a normal firewire connection from a computer. But if you believe Crystal cable and Siltech, they are willing to take $1000 for a firewire cable. How do they do it? What on earth have they done? Extra shielding? Solidcore silver and teflon? Let the BS begin...

Hmm, have you seen the price of my cables?? We have really suffered at the hands of the gold price, and our prices for our top end cables, which have a lot of gold in them has rocketed up alarmingly.

Since the computer is the master clock then the cable isn't transferring data in block mode, as it does in most other applications, and so the delicate clock timing has to be transmitted by the Firewire cable. So it suffers exactly the same issues as good versus bad SPDIF cables, for example. So the 'quality' of the cable matters, but more or less so depending on what it is feeding.

The benefits of Firewire and USB over SPDIF or AES/EBU are that the signal does not have to be locked onto so tightly, and Firewire is usually going to get a lower jitter signal out of the computer than USB.

I thought that with Asynchronous USB implementations, such as from Wavelength, Ayre and dCS, the computer is no longer the master clock. Likewise for some Firewire implementations.

Antipodes audio, Drubin,

my point exactly...

Ps Antipodes by BS I was referring to some audiophile cable manufactures in general. Not you necessarily of course (unless you have been eying up snakes in your spare time!). I did not know you made cables. I also am aware that some metals have shot up, which must mean the bill is passed on.

I have come across some cables that have only been renamed and covered in a thick pretty outer sleeve and sold for unfair sums.