Why do digital cables sound different?


I have been talking to a few e-mail buddies and have a question that isn't being satisfactorily answered this far. So...I'm asking the experts on the forum to pitch in. This has probably been asked before but I can't find any references for it. Can someone explain why one DIGITAL cable (coaxial, BNC, etc.) can sound different than another? There are also similar claims for Toslink. In my mind, we're just trying to move bits from one place to another. Doesn't the digital stream get reconstituted and re-clocked on the receiving end anyway? Please enlighten me and maybe send along some URLs for my edification. Thanks, Dan
danielho
A digital waveform can be very badly distorted, as viewed by the eye, but a well designed line receiver will still properly distinguish ones from zeros. Furthermore, if an error is made, or even a group of errors, perhaps due to some unrelated power glitch or scratch on the CD, a data stream with error correction encoding (like a CD) will still be recovered exactly. Them is the facts.
Precisely. Which is why it is so curious that digital cables do seem to sound different from one another.
Drubin...So let's turn this question over to the psychologists. Electrical engineering has no explanation.
Because the components that connect the transport and DAC are themselves connected to the ac-line source via possibly different power cords...and we know from a thread elsewhere that AC Power Cords have an effect on frequency response (digital or analog)

Geez guys it was soooo easy ;)

Cheers and happy listening!

DPac