Cable as Source

Posted by: Greg Beatty on 07 January 2002

All this talk about source first, and me just getting cable hooked up in my new digs, has got me wondering.

I live in Oakton, Virginia and our cable system is analog. The cable company is in the process of converting to digital cable, whatever that means.

Question:

In general, how do you find cable as an audio source? How good or poor is the sound that you get? How does it compare to rabbit ears or a dedicated antenna on the roof? How do the satellite dishes compare?

And, what can I expect when they convert me to digital?

I still remember listening to a NAT 01 - jeepers - truely a voices-in-the-room experience. I've heard good things from by rabbit ears from time to time, but the cable sounds pretty dire at the moment.

- GregB

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Posted on: 07 January 2002 by Tony L
quote:
In general, how do you find cable as an audio source? How good or poor is the sound that you get?

I have Sky Digital satellite, and the sound quality is really variable between channels. On a good film without much compression it sounds excellent, I often think 'wow, that sounded good', but on some stuff it sounds appalling. MTV is quite compressed on the standard rock video footage, but the occasional live set shows what it can do. Classical or jazz concerts on the BBC sound truly excellent.

Don't expect it to sound good from brand new, I reckon my satellite box took a good month or two to burn in. Sky has surprisingly good PRaT!

Tony.

Posted on: 07 January 2002 by David Dever
The digital cable thing might be a prospect...many company-supplied units now feature IEEE1394 on the rear of the units; some even feature a bitstream digital out (perfect for an AV2 - plug).

Though the video (and audio) signal may be data-compressed, the sound quality can be, at times pretty decent, considering the poor quality of many analog (cable or broadcast) transmissions.

I found this to be an issue recently with kids' cable channel Nickelodeon while visiting my parents' house--Rugrats in particular made me wonder whether Mark Mothersbaugh was intentionally running everything through a (analog) distortion box. Turned out to be the network...

Dave Dever, NANA

Posted on: 07 January 2002 by Greg Beatty
Haven't watched the show lately - or since getting the cable installed.

But I remember when I used rabbit ears on the tele having a sonic blast with The Simspsons. The "you are there" thing happened with many of the sounds and such used - all studio recorded since none of the cartoon stuff is real anyway. And all done in stereo.

Have to check if The Simpsons sound good via the cable.

Here's a fun link:

The Simpsons

DOH!

- GregB

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Posted on: 08 January 2002 by howard karbel
I just recently "upgraded" from analog cable TV to digital. It's only been a couple of weeks but I think the digital is actually an improvement. With regard to compression, there are some programmable features in the cable box and one of them let's you control the amount of compression from high, to low, to none. I have it set to none and most stations sound pretty good that way. For Dave Dever, I have this question....forgive my ignorance, but what is IEEE1394 and what can it do for me so I can check to see if I have it. And, what is the advantage of having an AV2 plug.
Posted on: 08 January 2002 by Greg Beatty
Ability to turn off the compression on the digital cable sounds promising. My first DVD player (a Toshiba) had adjustable compression burried deep in the settings menus and the sound was a good bit better with it off.

- GregB

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Posted on: 08 January 2002 by David Dever
Howard-

IEEE 1394 (iLink, FireWire) is a serial digital connection used for transferring high-bandwidth digital video, audio, data, etc. across a four- or six-wire cable, to oversimplify matters.

Better still, look at the back of your cable box and see what type of connections you do have--this will tell you more about future upgrade possibilities than anything else.

Dave Dever, NANA

P.S. The AV2 is Naim's new surround decoder/preamp.

[This message was edited by David Dever on WEDNESDAY 09 January 2002 at 02:26.]

Posted on: 09 January 2002 by Manu
Digital cable (here in Montreal) is indeed very good. BUT you need a good DAC (AV2 for example - plug).
The on board DAC of set-top boxes are cheap (cable and satelite).

Don't forget to use a ground isolator, as cable is a major source of hum.

Compression controls on set-top boxes and on DVDP have nothing to do with data compression at the source. This feature is to compress output volume for use at night when spouse and children are asleep. Compression is turn off by default on all devices i know.
The compression of data at the source is produce by the MPEG encoder, and you have no control on it

Emmanue

Posted on: 13 October 2002 by pac
quote:
Don't forget to use a ground isolator, as cable is a major source of hum


Reading back through some previous threads. Can anyone (or Emmanuel) explain this and how to implement? Pls pardon my level of ignorance on this topic.
Posted on: 13 October 2002 by Bob McC
Paul Quigley
Read an article recently in Hi Fi News that said the best feed for BBC digital radio is currently via SKY. I feed my SKY box through my system and must say BBCs 3 and 4 sound great. Agree with Tony about MTV, it sounds crap.
Posted on: 13 October 2002 by Manu
PAC:
The CTV ground isolator is a tranformer you plug on your cable before the set-top box or the TV or VCR.
The cable's ground/shield potential if generally far from 0v and thus generate a hum when plugged to a system ground. It applies to both analog and digital cable.
This can be found at RS for less than US$10.


Emmanuel

All opinions are my own, and reflect those of the organisation i work for, even if not stipulated.
Posted on: 14 October 2002 by pac
Emmanuel,
Appreciate the quick reply & lesson - v. helpful.

cheers!