Why do digital cables sound different?

On someone's reccomendation I purchased a RadShack Digital RCA cable. They claimed it was very good, it was so bad there was audible static. I worked with an engineer once who screwed up the implementation of my DAC driver that it was always 2 bits off on each word. This causes the static. On most protocols I've workrd with, if they don't sync up they just drop the data. I assume that the thought here is dropping a sample here or there is no big deal. I'm pretty sure they didn't realize how audible the inadequacies were going to be. If they really wanted to do this right, they should have gone with laser pickup on analog discs.

Redkiwi, I am not a designer of digital audio playback devices but I thought that the data sent to the DAC is asynchronis. If that is true where are the timing errors? Is the data clocked from the transport to the DAC or is it really asynchronis? I do not know, but if it is asynch, then the statement about arriving with perfect timing does not make sense to me. Is it the timing between bits that you are talking about? If that is the case, how can the cable change the timing between the bits or even cause jitter?

Redkiwi, even if jitter did cause a problem, I do not think it would manifest itself in harmonically related distortions. I can't see it causeing either higher or lower order distortions.

Actually, Redkiwi I captured a megasample. I had a meg of aquisition memory and I filled it. After I filled the 1 meg I ceased taking data. The test took 80 minutes for all the data to be captured (106 bits every .5 sec [5 16 bit patterns plus the placeholder pattern]). I captured 16960 patterns or words if you will each 16 bits long.

WOW, this is a MUCH better response than I'd anticipated when I asked the first question. Thanks to everyone for the feedback. The wide spectrum of expertise in this forum is astounding! Now to stir the pot a little... Through this discussion, we have some idea of what may be going on within the cable and the interaction of the cable and sending/receiving mechanisms. However, what is the difference in the sound that is perceived? This is my thinking...If the stream is just 1's and 0's...what happens when there is degradation? How does it manifests itself? There seems to be a few phenomena that could occur...scrambled bits, missing bits, signal too low (too hight), timing errors, etc. To me, errors in the data stream would sound like dropouts/static, even wrong notes, etc. and not the same type of subtle differences as in analogue cable. However, there are reports of more bass, the highs being too bright, etc. There are even reports of digital cables with the "family" sound of the company's analogue cables. How can this be possible? As well, if not bits are lost, what difference does timing errors make? Isn't part of the reconstitution of sound at the receiving end, reclocking the signal? Sorry for so many questions, however this thread has been very interesting and educational! Thanks everyone!