Digital cable length/quality influence on sound

[TheZephyr]

I have heard a great deal of debate about whether or not digital cables influence the sound. I understand that a bad cable can cause complete failure, but as I am an actual computer engineer I have my doubts that a 'high end' digital cable can provide better sound than a standard fully functional cable.

I have a Weiss DAC 202. These DACs feature a bit perfect indicator as well as bitrate and depth display, so it is easy to determine whether or not the DAC is receiving perfect data, this makes it easy to determine whether or not your digital cable is fully functional.

I am happy to say that with this DAC (which can use it's internal clock for timing), that an el-cheapo 30 foot long cable works perfectly at every rate including 24/192. Be aware that the firewire spec requires that cables be a maximum of 15 feet long, so the cable I used is out of spec to begin with, but it still works perfectly.

 

[Speedskater]

In the past there have been cases of very expensive but poorly designed units that were very sensitive to cables! As Dick Pierce discovered over a decade ago.

 

[TheZephyr]

No doubt cables do have much influence on some equipment. Even devices like USB printers can be rendered unusable by poor cable.

For the specific case of the Weiss DAC 202 (and very likey other asynch capable devices) which is immune to cable/source jitter over firewire, the logic and exerience leads me to understand that a high end cables give no benefit beyond that offered by a basic fully functional cable.

 

[Bernard]

When I had a Cal Delta transport / Sigma II DAC combination I was initially using a Cardas Lightning digital (coax) cable, but then I borrowed a MIT digital cable, and was amazed at the improvement in sound quality. There should not be, but there is. I bought the MIT.

 

[Krazikiwi]

Coax digital cables

When I had a Cal Delta transport / Sigma II DAC combination I was initially using a Cardas Lightning digital (coax) cable, but then I borrowed a MIT digital cable, and was amazed at the improvement in sound quality. There should not be, but there is. I bought the MIT.

Ditto that. I found this out years ago between 2 coax cables from the same stable. In fact the cheaper of the two sounded better. The salesman was astounded ( it was a repeatable effect) but I forced the issue and bought them both to prove a point with cynics that cables, their connectors and most important, their soldered joints, matter.

In the case of these cables, it turns out the soldered joints had different properties that created an impedance mismatch at the DAC connector interface which in turn contributed to jitter which altered the sound.

My solution was to upgrade to ST&T multimode glass between the CD transport and the DAC.

So this is in the digital arena which we once all thought was immune to cable differences, " bits are bits " was the catch phrase!

My 5c worth of experience

Jeff

 

[TheZephyr]

Ok, so I got a response from the man Daniel Weiss himself and the DAC 202 firewire interface is truly asynchronous. It reads blocks of data from the source into a buffer and then reads the words out of the buffer into the D/A converter clocked by the 202's internal clock. Since the buffer does not maintain any jitter information, all the jitter information is lost, and the DAC is immune to jitter on that interface. If the cable is able to pass the transparency test (not drop bits) then it is functionaly eqivalent to any other cable which can also pass the transparency test.

[snark]If you can hear differences of firewire cables on this DAC then you can probably also hear differences in music bits stored on different brands of hard drive on the source computer.[/snark]

 

[Jimna]

.

[snark]If you can hear differences of firewire cables on this DAC then you can probably also hear differences in music bits stored on different brands of hard drive on the source computer.[/snark]

:ROFL: You read my mind.

 

[Gordon Gray]

Terminations?

Has anybody determined the impact on the connectors at both ends of the cable?

Would seem there may be an impact, especially with RCA terminations.

GG