Not looking for a cable debate But currently I am using a toslink cable from my cd player to Integrated amp (using its dac). Its a kabelDirekt- nothing fancy but I already had it on hand when I bought the player. I am now looking for a good digital coax cable to try out. Nothing too crazy in price-willing to go to up tp $150 or so. Any suggestions? Is the audio quest stuff any good? thanks
Black Cat Cable SilverStar 75 Mk II Digital – The Cable Company Some comments from John Darko: KIH #1: which components 'Keep It Honest'? | Darko.Audio
For coax S/PDIF, a three cable component video (RGB) RCA cable you have lying around. Component HD video has a bandwidth of 37MHz. CD audio is 2.8Mbps. For TOSLink optical, the only issue is light attenuation at distances. At under 10 feet, any decent cable will work fine, if not bent too tightly or damaged.
forgot to mention the run as it is now is 6ft. if I decide to get a turntable ( really big if and a whole other conversation) and rearrange the components then it would be only 3ft.
FYI - Some very nice poor man's SP/DIF cables may be had by simply repurposing old high-quality Composite video cables. The good ones are all supposed to be 75 Ohm cables, exactly like the SP/DIF specifications require.
Mogami Gold SPDIF cable is widely used and available from Amazon. Blue Jeans Cables makes one that meets specs. It's what I use. With modern DACs, I usually don't hear differences among digital cables. Neither does our host.
That's 300 bucks for 1 meter and he was looking for up to 150 bucks.... Have not tried them but have found little if no difference between properly constructed SPDIF cables (Blue Jeans, DH Labs, Monarchy, Pangea, midline Cardas and Audioquest) The DAC's I currently have in use are Gumby and an Auralic Vega.
Chris often has sales on his site and Cable Co. will usually work with you. Your experience is different from mine. I've tried AQ, BJ, Cardas, Black Cat, Nordost. Synergistic Research, Shunyata, Transparent Audio, and many others. They all sound different. They sound different on my PS Audio, any of my four Benchmark DACs, the Mytek in for review, and the iFi DACs. And I heard differences on the $20K Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference. I have not tried the Pangea or DH Labs but their cable are generally vey good. I have the Pangea phono cable and HDMI cables in for review right now. By the way, Peter McGrath travels with a Berkeley USB SPDIF converter for use with DACs. He demonstrated how great the old John Marks SPDIF was but also how much better sounding not using USB cables and using SPDIF is. The best SPDIF cable I have heard is the Synergistic Research Galileo but there is a new Galileo SX out just now and I have not heard it.
I'd appreciate it if you didn't preface your opinions of highly subjective phenomena with a statement that someone else is wrong.
Well, you got a cable debate and apologies for that. In your price range (around 150 bucks, may need up to 6') you can try Blue Jeans and you can even order a built 6' via Amazon prime for 24 bucks or so. It will give you a good baseline. If you order directly from them you'll pay a small shipping charge but you can select the color jacket that better suits your needs. Basic is Belden 1694A. They also offer Belden 1505 (flexible) and 1695A (plenum rated for in-wall and uses a teflon dielectric) for a bit more. There is no dealer mark up as they sell direct while most cable companies (Audioquest, etc) sell through dealers and they need to make their money too. Unless you need a dealer you may as well buy direct. A 2M Pangea will cost you 110 bucks through Audio Advisor. I assume you are looking for RCA connectors? Pangea is Audio Advisor's house brand.
Also, don't dismiss Blue Jeans because of the price. They don't advertise, don't sell through a dealer network and don't go out of their way to make a spiffy looking SPDIF cable. All of those things add to the cost without necessarily giving you more value.
QED Performance or QED Reference Digital Coax cable. I recently installed one each to my two systems. Connecting my CD players to Schiit Modi 3 and Schiit Bifrost. One of the best value/price proposals for digital coax cable. Open and fast sound. Keep the music together. I previously used some generic coax cable and it sounded mushy and smeared. Regards
I use the Real Cable AN99 between the Sonos Connect and the dac, and the Van den Hul Videolink 75 between the digital output of my cd player and the dac. Good cables that won’t break the bank. Imho any 75 ohm coaxial cable with decent connectors will do the job nicely.
If you want end to end 75 ohm characteristic impedance, you'll need to use 75 ohm BNC connectors because they keep the shield, conductor and dielectric in the proper relationship to each other up to termination to maintain the characteristic impedance. Unfortunately, very little home hifi gear is equipped with BNC connections, so we wind up using RCAs, and they work pretty well and there's little that most people can hear or that anyone can measure in terms of signal problems with digital audio over the 3 and 6 feet kind of lengths we're using with these RCA-terminated coaxes. I haven't done a lot of experimenting with digital cables, and maybe I don't have the most resolving gear in the history of the world, but in my very limited experience I'm also among those who hasn't heard much if any difference between various coax digital cables over short distances used as connections between a digital source and a DAC.
Absolutely true. I've always thought that the RCA standard for consumer SP/DIF cables was a poor choice.
thanks everyone for the suggestions. I may for now just get something like the bluejeans https://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Digi...l+audio+cable&qid=1551968308&s=gateway&sr=8-6 the price is excellent and seems bluejeans gets great reviews everywhere. If I do get a turntable and have everything permanently in place then I may look into other options for a 3ft. cable. Audioquest seems to come up a lot too. They seem to have many more options (cinnamon, carbon etc) just curious as to why their prices are so much more than blue jeans, I know they look much cooler. But at some point cost vs performance must come into play?
Maybe I am missing something but couldn't find a place in U.S. that had them ( don't have an Ebay account).
Yeah, but if you don't have BNC jacks on the equipment, you're stuck using RCA. Honestly, I'm not sure there's going to be much measurable or audible loss between the same cable and same equipment terminated with RCA vs. BNC in this application over a three-foot distance, but 75-ohm and BNC would be the right thing to use for conforming to spec.
