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Is AES/EBU the same as XLR?

I was curious to know if I can use the same analog XLR cables that I currently use between my cd player and preamp for the connection between my digital AES/EBU output on my cd player to my DAC.

Are they the same cable? If not, what is the difference? The connections look identical to me.

Thank you.
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krell_man
827 posts
 
I believe the answer is whatever you want it to be, and whatever sounds good to you.

The Virtual Dynamics digital AES/EBU was simply one of their balanced cables, and they worked fine.

The Stealth Varidig Sextet is definitely not an Indra.

Chuck
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,256 posts
 
An AES/EBU cable is spec'd at 110 ohms, a regular cable with XLR ends may or may not have that spec. You can still use any XLR cable, but it will not provide an optimal transfer of digital data.
mihaitaa
111 posts
 
I second Onhwy61.
The same applies for RCA terminated digital interconnects. They have to be 75 Ohms.
Thus any digital RCA interconnect may be used for analog duty, but not the other way around. Well, one could use an analog interconnect for digital duty, it will "work", but the sound quality will suffer from reflection-induced jitter if the cable is not 75 Ohms.
In the XLR world the same applies, only the required characteristic impedance is different.
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