what digital cables for my dac?


I have a cheap sony player hooked up to a monarchy dip,and into a mccormack Dac-1 with the $400.mod and nordost blue heaven interconnects to my Audio refinement Complete amp and nordost blue heaven speaker wire into my Martin Logan Aerius speakers. Yes I know I need a better and stronger amp,but for now please I need some input on digital wire going from my monarchy to my dac currently I am using $75 Kimber wire,What is good for $200 max,at 1/2meter? Tara,Nordost,kimber,mapleshades,crystalcable? Thanks for the input,Nick
128x128happynick
First of all, don't use a half meter. I had a very expensive Wireworld Gold Starlight III+ half metre cable with my first separates, but the bargain-priced Apogee Wyde Eye in a 1.5 meter length placed the instruments in the soundstage more clearly. The WW cable was superb in many ways, but length matters. If you're not sure you believe this, there are a good many posts on the subject archived here.

As for a good digital cable at your price, I would suggest the Ven Haus cryo Pulsar. It is almost as good at timbres, warmth and detail as my old GS III+, better at dynamics, and much, much cheaper. Another possibility might be either of the Atlas digital cables available from UHF magazine. They ditched their Gold Starlight in favour of Atlas Opus--again, much cheaper.

VH Pulsar

UHF cables

Whatever you get, though, make sure it's a 1.5 meter length.
Although the starting point using a "cheap Sony player" seems to be your weakest point, the upgrading of digital IC will let you know when you have heard all there is to hear from your transport, in the digital domain.
I can recommend using matching Mapleshade digital IC's (on either side of your Monarchy DIP), inexpensively excellent without being too revealing of transport inadequacies. Also, can point you toward a subsequent upgrade to match a more capable transport in your future: Auricle Audio Design Encore Signature digital IC.
Audiogon member Joemazzaglia sells these custom crafted digital IC's which truly excel at revealing everything your digital components can do, which is much more than you expect, if accustomed to most other IC choices. Priced too low to elicit budgetary shock and awe, which is a good thing.
Whatever you get, though, make sure it's a 1.5 meter length
1.5 meter is better than 0.5 ?can you please tell me why , thanks
Feel free to try shorter lengths of digital cable. While some cables may sound better in longer lengths, the general rules about all cables still apply to digital, shorter is always less damaging to the signal being passed in the cable. I'd suggest using the most revealing digital cable you can get, and letting your analog gear/cables tweak your sound. I try to never give up resolution in order to gain pleasant tonality, and any tweaking I do, I do as late in the signal chain as possible.
JMO.