Recommendation for Digital Cable with BNC terminations (

[barrows]

Respectfully:

 

"However, in my opinion, any decent jitter rejection scheme as implemented by state of the art DACs (or even previous generation ones) should reduce the jitter to a level below audible influence on the analog output. Thus, I reject the idea that we need USB cables and other digitial cables costing hundreds of dollars."

 

As you state, the above is your opinion. I do not know what you base this opinion on, but the above opinion is in direct opposition to my experience. There are many DACs which makes claims for "jitter reduction" or "jitter rejection", and indeed, many of these DACs exhibit very low levels of jitter when measured at their analog outputs using the conventional miller analyiser and j test signals, even when the source has demonstrably high jitter levels... But, every time I have fed a lower source jitter input to one of these DACs, the sound has been notably improved.

My own current DAC uses the ESS 9018, a chip which measures very well for noise products as the result of jitter at the input (see the current test profiles of the Moon 650D in the Novemeber Stereophile for confirmation), but regardless of the measured "jitter rejection" of the DAC, the sonic performance varies greatly with the quality of the input signal in terms of jitter. I do not know what the technical explanation is for this, but I do know it to be true, and this is not only my experience, but an experience shared by many, many audiophiles and design engineers. I have heard some engineers say they believe that the "jitter rejection" going on in the DAC chip, just changes the incoming jitter into a different type of (sonically objectionable) artifact in the output.

 

A consideration: if your above opinion was truly correct, none of the following would matter to sonic performance:

 

Async USB, Memory Players, Clock linking transports, and using a good quality SPDIF cable. I think most people reading this have had listening experiences which confirm that source jitter does matter: otherwise everyone would be fine using the optical output of a MacBook for playback (as long as they were OK with up to 24/96).

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I read that too. Sounds possible. Only possible, no more. Don't know whether or not any reflections can occur at these frequencies. If they do, it does no harm to try and reduce them whether you believe they matter or not. But my 'short ones' observation was based on if it was all in one box with only short pc board tracks it would be best of all. But might give rise to other issues.

 

I make up my own analogue interconnects. No reflections at those frequencies (so I believe). Most of them are only a few inches long. Have not tried that with 'digital' sp/dif or usb cables yet.

 

My career was all in software. I left it to the 'rude mechanicals' to sort out the hardware.

 

Regards

 

 

 

[ringenesherre]

I respect both your opinions and I take your experiences at face value! I am not trying to convince you that I am right. I am just trying to make the point that not everyone agrees with them.

 

In both my opinion and in my experience, the influence of digital cables on sound reproduction is insignificant.

 

I am very happy that in this forum, discussions are generally on a high level and differing opinions can peacefully coexist!

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

P.S.: I will comment on my take on the audibility of the parameters mentioned in Barrows post separately.

 

[ringenesherre]

Barrows,

 

as you correctly point out, if my opinion was correct, things like asynchronous USB, memory players, clock linking transports, and using a good quality SPDIF cable should not have any significant influence on the quality of the sound reproduction.

 

My listening experiences might well be at odds with those of other people, although I'm not sure these represent "most people".

 

I have personally tested the following three Mac OS X players in my (very modest) chain:

* iTunes (no sound enhancement, full volume)

* Audirvana (free version)

* Amarra (trial version)

 

After switching players for the same piece of a song a couple of times, I had the feeling that female voices were more clear in Audirvana compared to iTunes. I also somehow heard that the bass is more tight.

I told my wife about my impressions and let her listen to a piece of song she knows a couple of times on both players. She picked out Audirvana as having a more smeared bass but better female voices.

 

To settle this topic, I had her blindly identify (ABX style) the three players based on listening to the same piece. Lather rinse repeat a few times. Then I had her do the same to me. Neither of us two was able to reliably pick out iTunes vs Audirvana vs Amarra with better than chance probability. Thus, in my setup, the three players sounded the same to me and to my wife. This does not, of course, prove that they cannot sound differently in other configurations or to other listeners.

 

I also tried the M2Tech hiFace vs the optical output of my MacBook and could not hear any differences using 24/96 material or some songs 16/44.1 ripped from CD.

 

I have not tried clock linking or higher-quality S/PDIF cables yet. The only cable comparison I did was with a 0.5m Toslink vs a 5m Toslink cable.

 

Anyway, I am not saying all these things do not matter. Obviously there is situations where cable quality and clock linking matter - for example when we are talking recording studio with long cable lengths and the desire to minimize jitter on the recording (as this kind of jitter can never be recovered from in the reproduction process). There might also be more resolving systems than my small studio monitors attached to a simple upsampling DAC. But if asked for my opinion, I highly doubt that all the things you mention have a significant impact on the audible result in most sound reproduction scenarios.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

[Paul R]

(grin) And my wife can pick out Amarra vs. iTunes or Pure Music 19 times out of 20. Reliably. Every time.

 

She also notices if I change out a USB cable, which I have been known to do just to tease her. She will, in fact, be walking by, get a strange look on her face, which after a few seconds hardens into mock annoyance with me.

 

"DId you change the cables again?"

 

I won't even mention the difference between a $0.03 Toslink cable and a $10 Toslink cable, but she can pick them out, with utter reliability.

 

While I know Karen is something special, I also point out that her experience directly conflicts with yours.

 

 

 

[MarkS]

I use two runs of Black Cat Veloce in my office system from a Wadia i170 to a Monarchy DIP then to a Wadia 151 PowerDac mini. While I did not do any meaningful comparison aside from listening to a comparatively price cable from transparent, I think the Black Cat is good and fairly priced.

 

[Kimo]

Apogee makes an excellent cable, reasonably priced with solid engineering.

 

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/cables.php

 

[SteveChicago]

@DallasJustice: Interesting, my understanding is that for S/PDIF cables 2M is the sweet spot

 

[wgscott]

My wife finally noticed I swapped out the el cheapo TV soundbar subwoofer for the Rel 218. Her look of annoyance, however, was anything but mock. I bought a $30 cable for the damn thing too, so I could use it with movies.

 

[Paul R]

(grin) I added the word "mock" as CYA insurance, in case she happened to read this.

 

Karen has the most beautiful green eyes you have ever seen, and they look like terawatt lasers when she she gets - "annoyed."

 

-Paul

 

 

[barrows]

I see we will have to disagree, no worries man!

 

"To settle this topic, I had her blindly identify (ABX style) the three players based on listening to the same piece. Lather rinse repeat a few times. Then I had her do the same to me. Neither of us two was able to reliably pick out iTunes vs Audirvana vs Amarra with better than chance probability."

 

ABX testing is invalid, that's is also my opinion. Not going to debate it here though, been there, done that! See the thread regarding this subject for details if you are interested.

 

Another possibility, perhaps the high level of jitter from your optical output of the Mac is obscuring relevant details, just a thought...

 

like I said no worries, no personal attacks.

 

[bsn]

Funny that you should mention NASA... As it turns out, NASA uses the Analysis-Plus "Snake Oil" cables for both their pulse laser and in projects at their Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Not too bad of an endorsement for their cables. http://www.analysis-plus.com/NASA.html

Analysis-Plus is also an electrical engineering firm and in their own words "All the members of our team hold advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering or Physics, and our specialty is the art of computer simulation." The cable business is a sideline that they fell into. You can read about it on their website.

I recommended a very high quality low cost solution in the Blue Jeans Cable. However, there are many who prefer for whatever reason to purchase high-end cables. I think that is part of the fun of this hobby. Chrome valve covers on a car may do nothing to increase horsepower, but I'm not going to tell someone that they are wasting their money if they want to dress up their car. The same holds true for this hobby. Analysis-Plus will custom make cables that are of very high quality and turn them around in just a day or two, that’s why they also got my recommendation.

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I read your Analysis-Plus link.

 

One could get the impression that NASA chose the speaker cable for its flexibility rather than any other aspect of its performance.

 

JPL ordered some cables 'in the past'. Quite a lot of people in former East Germany ordered that horrible little communist two stroke car 'in the past'. Don't buy many now though. It is quite possible that JPL bought some cables and then said 'never again'. Not saying that is a fact, just saying the the existence of that possibility makes A-Ps report of it meaningless.

 

A-P appear to be using exactly the same sort of misdirection in their report that a stage magician uses. Which is of course what I would expect from a snake oil manufacturer.

 

I might buy one, out of curiousity, and, finding no difference, leave it in circuit. A-P could then say 'Mark Powell, the well-known skeptic, uses one of our cables in his home system'.

 

[ringenesherre]

That's of course a possible explanation. Good for me then that I'm happy with how my system sounds. Maybe I even like jitter

 

As for ABX testing, I have been reading the thread (as well as the paper on biases in testing). After this, I am only more inclined to consider results from ABX testing to have high validity and reliability.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

[Panelhead]

This has worked for all aplications around my home for maybe 15 years. The cable is about 50 cents a foot in bulk, and most connectors are 2 -5 dollars each. Lots of sources, Have Inc, Markertech, etc.

A crimping tool can be expensive, a Canare tool with dies was 200.00. But since then there are knockoffs for 50.00 out there.

The Canare connectors are top notch. True 50 and 75 ohm impedance connectors, crimp on pins, and permanent attachment. Never had on come loose.

Allows the flexibility of terminating with F, RCA, or BNC connectors. I have used it for video, data, and audio transmission. It is a RG-6 spec cable.

It is a value buy; a cheapo crimp tool, 100' of cable, and a handfull of connectors will be around 150.00.

 

George

 

[papageno]

Since my question started this debate, perhaps I could add a few cents worth. In contrast to many experienced audiophiles who have commented in this forum, I am a novice to the "high end audio" world. I don't understand sine waves or root mean square differential equations but I have a decent ear (used to play professionally) and I identify myself as a molecular biologist. It seems to me the beauty and the beast of audiophile debates lies in the simple fact that the "outcome" or 'observation' cannot be reliably measured. For instance, some people may like Audirvana better than iTunes and be able to reliably identify from the music which player is being used. Others may prefer a $10 cable over the $1000 cable. In each instance what is being "measured" is sonic quality....(a non quantitative variable which comprises many other non-quantifiable variables such listening experience, listening environment, the type of music being listened to, the resolution of the system, the quality of the recording and so on and so on. Thus when an outcome such as sonic quality is measured across different people in different continents, huge scatter occurs in the measured outcome. As anyone trained in some scientific principles will comment, if an outcome (preference of a sonic quality in this case) cannot be reliably "reproduced" by different people, it ceases to be reliable and all bets are off on commenting what indeed is a believable measurement.

 

This is the agony and ecstasy of critical audio listening. A lack of definite quantifiable measurement allows us to sustain our hobby as we can pontificate about the measured outcomes in each one of our homes or listening environment......it also allows manufacturers to build cables more expensive than the homes they bring joy to....in the hope that the "measured outcome of sonic quality" in that home is unparalleled at least to one pair of ears in that home. A thoroughly enjoyable forum nevertheless....

 

[bafonso]

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10203&cs_id=1020307

 

I'll gladly accept the remaining price up to 150 you were thinking of spending :-)

 

[ringenesherre]

Bravo for a very balanced view on this topic!

 

I share it almost completely and have in fact owned tons of expensive (analog) audio cables. Just because this way my gear felt better to me.

 

To each his own Just don't like if people new to such topics are led to believe they need to spend hundreds of dollars on a BNC cable when 10 dollars will do.

 

Cheers and good listening!

Peter

 

[Kimo]

For example, Apogee equipment and cable is quiet prevalent in the studio environment. 50.00 for a meter with proper shielding and good connectors does not sound out of line to me, even if it doesn't offer significant audio advantages over less expensive options. To say that all cable sounds the same is poppycock. Certainly, cheap cables can sound like crap, but so can very expensive cables, though they will more likely just sound different. One needs a baseline, and I would suggest the following; a well constructed cable with low capacitance for an IC, a well constructed stranded copper wire of reasonably low resistance for speaker cables, and a well constructed cable using connectors of proper impedance for a digital IC. I suppose the BNC connectors make issue a little less critical. Along those lines, Bluejeans and Apogee respectively provide a good starting place.

 

[wgscott]

Why should any two cables adequate for the task of transmitting the signal, with (for the sake of argument) the same level of jitter, sound any different from one another?

 

I don't doubt that two cables can in principle sound different, but I would suggest that if this is indeed so, at least one of them must be defective.

 

[Kimo]

and since analog transfer can sound a little different from say a cd player to an amp, it seems like it is possible for sonic differences to exist during "digital" transfer. Frankly, I didn't hear a lot of difference, if any, when comparing a variety of cables with my DAC, though some sure looked a lot different.

 

It is not always a perfect square wave being output, though it probably should not be that hard to come close. You could go to the lampizator site to see what some CD transports output and it often isn't very pretty. Perhaps, the less accurate cable might actually sound better to some.

 

 

 

[bafonso]

You can't tell the difference yet you believe wildly priced cables with the same physical properties sound different. I see.

 

[Kimo]

at least not very well, or at least not well enough to correctly read what was written. I could not tell much of a difference in digital cables in my rig, but I also discussed analog ICs and and speaker cables in a previous post. If one cannot understand how all speaker cables don't possess the same set of measurements, even though they may be made of metal conductors, and that various measuring cables will react differently when installed between different amplifiers with varied output impedance and different speakers with plots all over the place, than one must be entirely ignorant of some basic engineering. The "they all sound the same nonsense" really does a disservice to all, especially those newer listeners, who might be swayed by such an overly simple approach to sound reproduction. I have found that it usually is connected with an unwillingness, or inability to spend a little cash on cables, and not any particular experience with audio, or educational background.

 

[bafonso]

The disservice to all is to believe two cables with the same specs can sound different. If you go through the time to measure the cable's specs you will see most fall within the same spec or their difference is negligible.

 

Please read http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/speaker-cable-gauge

 

I always wonder if people know what cables studios use :-) I say this because what some people spend on an IC is more than the cost to wire a small-sized studio sometimes.

 

[Kimo]

His view tends to be more political than rational. Roger Russell has a website offering a similar take.

 

Try this for a more balanced insight.

 

http://bryston.com/cablememo.html

 

Certainly, these guys know a little about equipping a studio, and no the cables that they offer do not cost 2.00.

 

As to what constitutes a "negligible" difference, that is another question entirely, and dependent upon the interface of speaker and amp, not existent in some vacuum.