1.0 vs. 1.5 Meter Digital Cable

I think Martin DeWulf once published in Bound for Sound that 1.0m digital cable was preferable to 0.5m. He offered some technical reason about the signal flow that I don't recall, so I'd probably save the $$$ and go with the 1.0m over the 1.5m if it's long enough for your application.

Tim

I once owned and tested the Illumination D-60 cable: .5/M, 1/M, 1.5/M. I did not hear a difference. I have spoken to many audiophiles that say today, the shorter the better.

There is alot of contradictory info about this question, but as best I can gather it is for toslink cables that many people experience gains with 1.5 or 2meter cables. They claim that this has to do with stabilizing the early reflections of the lightpulses in the tube. For a regular electical signal like s/PDIF I have never heard a reasonable argument that longer cables can do anything but hurt. However, the standard was designed to accomodate cables up to 2 meters in length with no significant alteration of the signal. That said I use a 0.5m Illuminati D-60 and am very happy.

From what I have gleaned over time on this topic, the main objective is to end up with the smoothest, most regularly shaped curve to the cable run between the digital components. Depending on how the transport and DAC are positioned relative to each other, it would make no sense to purchase too long a cable and wind up with extra bends or loops in the cable run. Conversely, don't buy too short a cable and cause sharp bends at the connectors with the cable pulled straight in between. Let the physical setup of your system dictate the correct digital IC length.

The reason a longer cable might sound better is due to the gradual flexing of the cable. If the digital cable is short, at the point the cable is bent the impeadence will change at that point due to the dielectric being compressed and the center conductor moving closer to the sheild. This impeadeance change from 75 ohm to a different value causes an impeadeance mismatch which in turn creates internal standing wave reflection for the digital signal to try to get through. This intern causes "jitter" which creates digital errors that the d to a converter must try to correct.

When digital data is lost or its 0/1 transition state can not be accurately determined the sound quality suffers. The sound will take on a course or hard texture and will not be as airy or deminsional as it would be if the digital signal is passed in its entirty and at the proper timing.

So yes, it could make a difference in using a longer cable!