Jitter and 75ohm cable length

Clever experiment, taking advantage of the fact that the CDP has digital inputs!

I have no knowledge as to how practical it might be to have the Kimber cable re-terminated with Canare's, but why bother? If the 3' HAVE/Canare sounds just about identical to playback via the CDP's built-in transport (with no cable and no S/PDIF interface involved), that would seem likely to be as good as it gets!

Regards,
-- Al

The best 75ohm cable I've ever heard has been a Moray James digital cable and this designer swears by 1.5m length. It clearly beat my half meter Canare and Kimber Illuminati cables....in MY system. Here's the twist, the MJ cable was voiced with the same type of Meitner DAC I owned. I suspect part of the magic has to do with system synergy. However, I still use the Moray James cable for the streaming audio feed to my PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC. It has the best bass and soundstage I've heard and recently beat an XLR Harmonic Tech Platinum digital cable. Your ears will guide you to the right destination. I believe finding the right cable/link is key to good digital sound reproduction.

Notes on the 840c

First, it has both balanced and unbalanced outputs. The balanced make for quite an improvement. Choice of cable? Gigantic, as you well know. I'm not a big cable experimenter, but the 'as issued' unbalanced went to the trash and I bought some Mogami balanced.

Secondlly, the digital inputs of the CA840c are somewhat MORE prone to jitter effects from the source than many other players / DACs. To that end, CA has issued several Software Revisions, none of which they'll send you anymore, wanting to (either or both) keep people from bricking there players OR drive business back to the dealer. The last revision I had wanted XP and the computer MUST have a serial port and you need a Null-Modem cable.
I was unable to get an Apple AirportExpress to play properly with the toslink input of the player. Simply too much jitter.

I'd recommend looking at the software rev of the player and examining the downstream cabling used, since that won't be a trivial effect.

Thank you Al and Vhiner. Canare has it's own set of cable and terminations, where HAVE seems to use their choice of cable with the Canare terminations, hence, HAVE/Canare. Specifically, HAVE uses GEPCO International VSD2001 High Definition 75ohm Serial Digital Coax (this is printed on the cable) I'm not sure if Canare uses the same cable, but what I can say, again everybody has system dependent variables, in the end I agree with you (Vhiner)completely, follow your ears and don't drink by the label. As far as my 3' HAVE/Canare, it's the best cable I can not hear and that sums it up for me! Thanks for the feedback!
Rpg

Magfan, I had to send in my unit once for repair about a year or so ago where the transport had problems loading a disk. When I received the unit back they provided a note where they said in addition to the repair they upgraded some power supply caps so the unit, as they say, "reduced the in-your-face presentation" (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean). No mention was made of a firmware upgrade, but I am suspicious they did upgrade the firmware but wanted to keep it low-key. My current version is; 01/069/1.1 is this the latest firmware you are aware of? I have all of the facilities to upgrade but have never received information that one was available. I did call CA and they told me there was only one upgrade since the CDP was released and it as they claimed did nothing to improving the sonic qualities of the unit and was specifically targeted for the Apple AirportExpress claiming the Jitter from it was so severe at times the 840C could not get a lock, so they somehow through the firmware update opened the window and made the unit more forgiving of received data. Is this how you understand the issue? Am I on-base about this or had I been fed a bunch of bunk? Lastly, do you know if the version I have is the latest and if not how do you find it and what is it supposed to improve?? Thanks!
Rpg