Digital interconnect cables

On the subject of the old 'bit are bits' argument, as I posted in another thread...

The bits are transmitted as an analogue electrical signal varying between different digital levels, and can therefore vary in timing (an analogue property) and carry RFI by varying in voltage (another analogue property).  The digital information is just an interpretation of the analogue signal in the cable.

So, not surprising that there are differences.

Sometimes that argument is all that keeps such a thread going.

well a bit surprised that even a Naim digital cable has the Naim sound?

But not unexpected either.... but curious how  does Naim give a digital sound their own sound?

analogmusic posted:

well a bit surprised that even a Naim digital cable has the Naim sound?

But not unexpected either.... but curious how  does Naim give a digital sound their own sound?

I have no clue. I don't even know how they do it with their amps and sources. I've tested these cables for weeks now, switched back and forth every now and then and always the same differences. Now I've settled to 1694A. 

I think Huge has a good point there. Without any deeper technical knowledge, I would say that electrical connection between two gadgets is the reason why there can be differences. 

Interesting comparison, though it prompts me to ask if this thread now defined the famous 'Naim Sound': great PRAT but otherwise very forward, in your face and bass not going so low?

Well that wasn't my intention. My observations are valid only in comparison to the Belden cables. Though I must say that IMO Naim sound usually is forward and "in your face". This has been the case with pretty much all Naim setups I've heard. 

I had slightly similar results recently when I compared nDAC + XP5XS against nDAC + an aftermarket PSU. Naim definitely has their own approach and it would be more weird if they wouldn't encourage this approach in everything they make. 

In the past I've just bought digital cables based on what should be good construction, installed it & didn't really think anything more of it.  Recently I had several different digital coax cables on hand as I was making some changes & had some for the second system so thought I would swap them to see if I could notice any difference & from my results I would agree, digital cables can make slight differences.  They all seemed to have their own character, they were all what is commonly known as the ideal 1.5m length (being their RCA & not BNC connections), so length wasn't playing a roll.

The Monoprice RG6/U bettered the BJC Belden 1694A in my usage. Very affordable. Worth a try. Could probably be further improved with true 75 ohm connectors.

It is surprising that the transmission of 1's and 0's can be affected by cable characteristics over such short lengths but I agree that you can discern differences. Personally I use Clearer Audio cables as the DC1 is the only Naim item which I have not enjoyed. I bought and sold it on twice trying to like its sound! As usual I suspect that things may be system and room acoustic dependent but anyway it's fun to 'play around' with tweaks...

Brilliant posted:

The Monoprice RG6/U bettered the BJC Belden 1694A in my usage. Very affordable. Worth a try. Could probably be further improved with true 75 ohm connectors.

VHF signal transmission - which is what SPDIF is - requires the cable to be appropriately terminated with connectors and cable of the correct impedance - in this case 75Ω. Typical audio coax and its RCA plugs may be more like 50Ω, which is not good, and worse may be 50Ω connectors on 75Ω cable. Transmission errors include reflections of the signal back along the cable, and whilst the 1s and 0s might still be discernible, as Huge indicates there can be other effects which will not be aided by the mush alongslide the signal.

Actually SPDIF at all sample rates between 44.1kHz through to 192kHz is HF and not VHF.

i think you'll find the transport clock at 192kHz  on SPDIF is around 24.6MHz

You won't find a live topic on this subject unless someone has contributed to an old thread before the forum automatically shuts it down, meaning that in order to have a long term discussion, the same subject has to be started and restarted and restarted over and over and over and over and over again. Many years of collective wisdom have been archived, never to return, under cubic tonnes of inconsequential prattle because the prattle was posted more recently.

My own experiences with the Naim DAC feeding an HDX was that no two digital interconnects sounded exactly the same and some sounded significantly different. Hardly a surprise, since this was my experience in the 1980s when I first owned an external DAC. Price does not necessarily correlate with good performance.  Sarum genuinely sounded broken. An overused description which was appropriate in my case. It was as awful as it was awfully expensive. Things will have moved on but the ability of different cables to sound different will endure,. No matter how improbable. It's one thing that has remained constant in my life time.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Brilliant posted:

The Monoprice RG6/U bettered the BJC Belden 1694A in my usage. Very affordable. Worth a try. Could probably be further improved with true 75 ohm connectors.

VHF signal transmission - which is what SPDIF is - requires the cable to be appropriately terminated with connectors and cable of the correct impedance - in this case 75Ω. Typical audio coax and its RCA plugs may be more like 50Ω, which is not good, and worse may be 50Ω connectors on 75Ω cable. Transmission errors include reflections of the signal back along the cable, and whilst the 1s and 0s might still be discernible, as Huge indicates there can be other effects which will not be aided by the mush alongslide the signal.

It performed well enough with its RCAs (as sold) to displace the BJC in my setup.

As mentioned above, it is said that when using RCA/phono for digital, a 1.5m length is supposed to be ideal because it reduces signal reflections/jitter from using the non 75ohm ideal connector (RCA is not typically 75ohm, no matter what the manufacturer claims, believe WBT makes one that is supposed to be 75ohm but it only is when the mating female socket is also their matching jack).  So for the true 75ohm BNC, length isn't an issue but for RCA/phono go with 1.5M for best performance.

It does make me smile when people are passionate about the latest 'super digital cable' (and the cable may well be suitable) but are happy that it is terminated in an audio connector and then use an adaptor to make the connection to the properly considered Bnc device installed on the back of the naim black box.

I applaud Experimentations with cables, but we should at least get the fundamentals right.

A Cable, perhaps a basic component in the system, but what mystery around it! Solution- trust yourself and listen to it in your system. Change the connectors or length  if you like- not much to it.

The problem is that manufacturers insist on using a cheap low frequency connector, the RCA jack, for the S/Pdif signal - a task for which they are eminently unsuitable, their impedance being anything from 20Ω to about 60Ω, depending on construction and frequency.

At least Naim (and to be fair, a few other manufacturers) get it right and use BNCs (the connection hardware of the AES-3id standard).

Even Naim got this wrong on the DVD5 but they probably didn't expect anyone to actually use it at the time. 

I blame Mark Grant.

I recently came accross a reel of bell wire bought from Woolworths back in the sixties... I'm wondering whether I should terminate a length (say 1.5m) with a couple of screw fit Radio Shack phono plugs and give it a go alongside my Radio Rentals ariel (75ohm) lead that I was thinking of evaluating (with a view to selling my DC1 to fund more vinyl).   

Thing is, this current sunny spell has forced me out of my music room and into the garden (well actually it was SWMBO not the sunny weather), so this particular digital cable evaluation will have to take its place behind the Tiger Paw Tranquility thingy evaluation as soon as it starts raining again (which being in the North of England, won't be long).

I use a dinosaur Van Den Hul The First Carbon cable from 1999 as a digital cable between Sonos Connect and DAC SN. It's great with a Pratty, open and fresh sound. 

I put the 4794R back in place of the 1694A last night between Core and Rega DAC-R. For me the 4794R lets through more nuance and the sense of ensemble is much better, I can hear The Moulettes enjoying themselves when they recorded The Bears Revenge. I don't remember it sounding this good last time the 4794R was in place but there's been a firmware update for the Core and I've reordered my brain stack so the superline sits below the 552. A £600 DAC shouldn't sound as good as this in such company.

I think the Chord Sarum Tuned Array range was originally invented to reduce reflections on RCA to RCA SPDIF cables. some of the Tuned Aray has trickled down to lower ranges, does anyone have experience with Chord digital cables?

Don't understand digital stuff. Today I bought a £9.99 digital cable thing for Sonos Connect to Arcam rDAC so I can listen to Planet Rock through main system. Already had the DAC so thought might as well use it. No analogue, but hey it will do. 

Huge posted:

The problem is that manufacturers insist on using a cheap low frequency connector, the RCA jack, for the S/Pdif signal - a task for which they are eminently unsuitable, their impedance being anything from 20Ω to about 60Ω, depending on construction and frequency.

At least Naim (and to be fair, a few other manufacturers) get it right and use BNCs (the connection hardware of the AES-3id standard).

My ns01 only has an RCA connector, however this was changed with the latest sound card, at least so I am told. One reason why I have considered to change the card, but never gotten around to have it done.

Claus