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The best digital IC, period.

I've spent a great deal of time, too much really, to find the best IC between my transport to my DAC. After listening to six cables from some big names and big $$ as well as some not so well names for small $$. The winner came out to be a HAVE/CANARE $25 IC. With this cable there is no eye candy at all, ZED, but it's combination of GEPCO International, VSD2001 high definition 75ohm serial series digital coax, and CANARE true 75ohm RCA terminations, simply killed all of the esoteric cables with a few others coming in very very close, but the HAVE/CANARE $25, 3' was just beyond belief. Now I know that people feel strongly to use at least 1.5M in length for a DIC, but with this company I tried cables at length of 12" to 1.5M, i tried them all and the best of the buch was their standard 3' cable, defying the math. Hey, for 25$?
rpg
ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,553 posts
 
RPG, The Morrow Dig4 with silver eichman RCA is still the best cable I have ever owned or tried. But to be honest, I have'nt tried that many.
The Have/Canare is a very good cable for the price but the Morrow has more depth and smoothness.
sabai
2,027 posts
 
Musicxyz, I am running an AES/EBU digital cable at the moment. Would you say that the HiDiamond digital (which is not available in AES/EBU) is better sounding than even the best XLR digitals you have tested?
nglazer
846 posts
 
Stealth Sextet, especially AES/EBU. I have tried many: AZ, Kimber, Nordost Valhalla, Kharma Grand ref, Chris Sommogio's Black Cat predecessor, etc. Valhalla and Kharma's were close, but nothing as good all around as the Sextet. Just one man's opinion, of course.

Neal
rpg OP
126 posts
 
Ozzy, thanks for the feedback. A number of cables I tested were smoother at the top, a Kimber comes to mind, but for me I liked the extended detail of the HC cable in which some may call it a bit bright. However when I compared it to strait CD playback the HC cable sounded closest to the CDP. Thanks again!
Rpg
antigrunge
74 posts
 
My vote goes to the Acoustic Revive cable on Sp/DIF and while I have experimented with Siltech, Chord and others, I feel that on the Acoustic Revive replacing the wallwart with a linear PSU yields real benefits. I think there is a need for research on the transmission of clock signals in digital links which are paramount for good results and Acoustic Revive's circuitry majorly contributes to accurate clocking.

USB is a different topic, altogether
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