Why do digital coax cables matter?

Jitter is measurable, correct?

Will a cable of some determinate length not add some measurable, repeatable, non-arbitrary amount of jitter within a particular range of measurement, regardless of any jitter coming from the source component?

Are there any cable manufacturers that measure and publish jitter specifications for each of their different cable products and cable lengths?

Seasoned got it right, but I still wonder with current state of digital technology if in practice it is really that much of a problem with most modern gear. Digital technology in this regard has come a long way since the CDs outset around 30 years ago. That makes a big difference.

Of course to whatever extent it may still be a problem in practice, audiophiles will care more about it than most normal people.

In my case, to date, I would have to say that digital cable tweaks have made the least difference of most any tweak I have tried. Most others (digital and analog related) I hear a difference. With digital cables, I am still waiting. I have mostly compared optical versus coax to-date specifically. These are each significantly different so I expected to hear something but have not so far. I have also yet to hear a practical difference through the same DAC from various digital sources. I have compared several digital sources including Marantz DVD player, Denon CD player, ROku SOundbridge and Logitech Squeezebox. They all tend to sound similar and essentially equally good to the point where I determined it did not matter to me.

Will a cable of some determinate length not add some measurable, repeatable, non-arbitrary amount of jitter within a particular range of measurement, regardless of any jitter coming from the source component?

No, absolutely not. As implied in some of the preceding posts, the amount of jitter that will result with a given cable in a given system, at the point where D/A conversion is performed within the DAC (which is where it matters) depends on a complex set of relationships and interactions between the parameters of the cable, including length, impedance accuracy, shielding effectiveness, shield resistance, propagation velocity, bandwidth, etc., and the technical characteristics of the components it is connecting, including signal risetimes and falltimes, impedance accuracy, jitter rejection capability, ground loop susceptibility, etc.

Many of the relevant component parameters are usually unspecified, and even if they were specified in great detail predictability of the net result of those interactions would still be limited at best.

Regards,
-- Al

We need to look at the whole system. Cable impedance is designed to 75 ohm to match everything else in the signal path. However, everyone knows nothing will be perfect, so it comes down to how close is the actual impedance to 75 ohm. How about the connectors, trace of PC board, etc. What matters is at the point where the clock information is recovered from the signal. If it is not exactly 44.1kHz, there is jitter and it causes distortion to the audio signal. Therefore, cable quality matters if everything else in the system closely matches to 75 ohm. If by accident, everything matches to 70 ohm, it will be good too, but chance for that to happen is very small.

Therefore, professional studio use master clock such that only the 1 and 0s are decoded from incoming signal and not the clock information. In that case, jitter can be minimized to just between the DAC and master clock generator. Then most effect from the cable can be eliminated. A few high end decoder manufacturers adopt this setup like Esoteric and DCS for home use. It is a much more expensive solution, but it works.

Cheers and enjoy music

Digital cables are fundamentally different than analog cables.....the cable is an electrical transmission line at 44+ kHz. The 75 ohm impedance match at each end is critical for jitter, minimizing reflections, etc. BNC connectors are made for this, but Canare makes one of the only 75 ohm RCA connectors available......I've tried 'em and they sound better. Any good video cable in between works well, but the cable pedigree is much less important than with analog cables.