What is the best digital cable?

Hey Dekay,

My experience with mapleshade is this; sounds terrific if you can stand the hum. My speakers had hum and static when I had the Ultrathin and used it between amp and pre. Now I've went back to the AQ emeralds. So, as an experiment, I plugged the ultrathins into my trans-dac, and my dac went berserk: it wouldnt stop ticking. I believe the hum and the ticking results becase the mapleshades are not shielded. Have you had similar problems with mapleshade products? And if you have, how have you curtailed them? I love the way mapleshades sound. Great price too. Too bad I can't use them in my system.

Jaykapur, You must have good digital equipment to hear a difference between digital cables. if you use a 800 digital cable between a 200 cd player and a 300 receiver, there will be no noticable difference between it (the 800 coax) and a 10 dollar TOS-link cable.

Hi Viggen: I have never had problems with hum and/or RFI with the Mapleshade Double Helix digital cable, so I'm afraid that I have no advice to offer. Oddly enough I am surrounded by radio and TV stations and one would think that this would arise. I am currently using a digital IC made up of the 47 Labs OTA cable kit, but still have the Mapleshade as it is a close second. Gunbei @ this site (who lives 45" south of me) had a similar problem with his Mapleshade IC and I do not think that it was ever resolved. I have gone as far as to make DIY IC's which have no twisting, insulation or shielding, at all, and still no hum (at least when I'm around anyway:-). On the other hand I had the worst problem with their PC's, which made my system sound like a transistor radio, but both PC's checked out fine when I returned them to Pierre and others were having great results with them in their systems. Maybe try working with Pierre on the problem (he's a smart guy and nice to talk to)?

Hmmm: I think that I would probably use a pair of analog cables between a CD player and a receiver (unless the $300 receiver had a built in DAC). No wonder you can't here any difference. The right cord for the right job.

The DRC, digital reference cable by Esoteric Conductors is my favorite. Nothing comes close and is worth every penny if $450/ meter is in your budget. Amazing speed, details; the harmonics are comepletely coherent and no fatigue whatsoever. Maybe you can find a set in usedcable.com.