regular interconnect for digital signal transfer

great to see another person using the vdh first as a digital interconnect - that thing is amazing (i'm using the metal screen version of the first). it creates a full wall of sound like no other digital interconnect i've ever tried. i also have the vdh digicoupler, stanwal, which iirc is vdh's top digital interconnect (at least it used to be) and mine are in 1.5m, but they may have stopped making it, i dunno. it's more resolving than the first and is amazing on video. once for kicks, as i'm so impressed with the firsts on digital audio i tried them as video cables and it was all warm red... PROOF that a digital cable can be warm!

so it never hurts to try cables out as digital interconnects. unless i'm mistaken, many companies' digital interconnects are in fact just their analog cables sold singularly - i suppose it's cost effective to just use connectors that are 75 ohm on all their cables to simplify their product lines.

but all that being said, i've tried some analog cables that sounded horrible as digital ones, so i'd at least buy an uber-cheapie digital cable to use as a reference if nothing else. i'm sure amazon (for instance) has digital cables that start around 5 bucks or so. monoprice is probably even cheaper, but they're shipping is more than the cables often (and i'm not in love with their analog cables)

and you never know, the cheapie might sound awesome.

A video cable will work in a pinch.

Thank you for your comments, gentlemen.

For those reading this who may not be aware, it is worth noting that the Van den Hul First Ultimate cable appears to have been designed with a "characteristic impedance" of 75 ohms.

That is the correct value for proper impedance matching for transmission of both unbalanced S/PDIF digital audio signals, and consumer-format analog video signals (component video and composite video).

Best regards,
-- Al

In any given instance the IC may outperform the digital cable, regardless of theory.

I should have mentioned that I am a VDH dealer, although since I have sold 2 pairs and a Digital cable in the last 2 years the may have forgotten me at Bluebird. The Digital cable is quite good also and I am going to get a couple more myself when I get up the next order. While the Opti-Coupler comes in 1.5 both the Digi-Coupler and the MC-Silver are cirrently listed in 1M and .6M only; this does not mean that there are not 1.5s floating around.