Digital Coax to XLR adapters?
The input on your DAC is AES/EBU which is a balanced XLR connection, but intended for a digital signal at 110 ohms. Your coax input on your DAC and output on your CD player is a coax S/PDIF input, which is a 75 ohm digital signal. So no, you can't use a connector to adapt one to the other. They are very different connections and use different standards and protocols. You need to go coax to coax using a digital RCA cable (NOT an analog RCA cable). Perhaps there is a digital coax splitter you could find, that would allow you to switch between inputs, but I don't know much about that. Google is your friend. Or maybe someone else can chime in. |
Actually, what you need is 75 ohm to 110 ohm impedance transformer. Get one of these: Canare BCJ-XP-TRB 75 Ohm to 110 Ohm Digital Audio Impedance Transformer. For the money, it's worth a try. Note that it wants a BNC connection on the coax in side, so you may need an adapter for that. |
I used this transformer and it works (with Benchmark DAC1). Be careful with the 6MHz Canare transformer bandwidth since protocol requires always 64 bits per sample (32bit per each channel) 44.1kHz x 64bit=2.82MHz OK 96kHz x 64bit=6.1MHz OK 192kHz x 64bit=12.3MHz Not working Protocol is pretty much the same but characteristic impedance and levels are different. Since you need to get from S/Pdif to AES/EBU you need to change characteristic impedance from 75ohm to 110ohm and increase voltage from 0.5V to 5V (active circuit or transformer required) Bandwidth limit of 6MHz will also slow down transitions to about 27ns. It won't affect typical player that has about 25ns transition but will affect more expensive transports' faster transitions - for better or for worse. I wouldn't worry about it now since it is system dependent and effect are unpredictable. Transformer is cheap and also sold on Ebay where I bought mine. Be sure it is BNC to XLR and not the other way around (XLR on transformer has to be male). Use number Drubin provided to avoid mistake. |
