From: jstimson@jarthur.claremont.edu (John Stimson)
Subject: Re: Digital Coax, 1.5m, b/w cd & dat, <=$200: suggestions?
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:02:44 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.205937.27927@tvnews.tv.tek.com> alexmi@soul.tv.tek.com (Alex Mitaru) writes:
>In article <1992Jul22.195620.599@leland.Stanford.EDU> ianchan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ian Hin Yun Chan) writes:
>>sounds VERY transparent, but not bright. Bass is very controlled. It's wierd
>>how this cable performs excellently both as regular and digital interconnects!
>>- Ian
>
> Yep, it is wierd....       
>
> alex

Why is it weird?  The purpose of any cable is to transmit an electronic
signal be it a smooth or square wave.  Why should something that's good
at one be bad at another?  

But I really don't see why one digital interconnect would be better
than another in the first place.  The signal is digital!  Any slight
problems in the square wave pattern will be removed at the receiving 
end, where the signal is interpreted in terms of whether it exceeds a
certain threshold value.  You would have to have a REALLY bad distortion
of the original signal for it to affect what the receiving end finally
procduces, a much worse distortion than I believe could be caused by any
wire.

I have heard that the place where the cable makes the difference is in 
the clock signal, which is supposedly encoded in an analog signal sent
through the same cable.  Though I get the impression that this tends 
to cause "jitter", and would have no effect on the bass.  

I have an outboard DAC and a Denon DCD-670 cd player, and the DAC sounds
distinctly better than the CD player.  The digital cable I used in 
comparing the two was some cheap (1mm diam) Denon interconnect that came
with the CD player.  The DAC's analog outs were connected to the amp
with $10 sony interconnects, and the CD player's analog outs were 
connected by MIT Zap cord.  I managed to set things up so that I couldn't
know except by listening which source was being played (same volume,
of course), but I certainly could tell - almost immediately - which
was playing just by listening.

Now if an outboard DAC (Denon DAP-5500, by the way, first manufactured in
1988) connected through such crappy wire as that can best the internal
DAC on my CD player (which is rather good for the money) maybe the answer
is to buy "reasonable" cables, perhaps some of the decent sony $15 stuff
or if you really want to splurge, Phoenix Gold at around $25 (I saw this
stuff at a dealer and it looked pretty solid, anyone have impressions
on it?) and sink the rest into a more expensive DAC...perhaps one that 
can compensate for possible jitter problems.

Oh, the MIT Zap cord is slightly nicerthan my $10 sony interconnects -
I tested this by running them off identical outputs from my DAC (It is
a preamp with tape out and D/A out...when the tape source is set to the
DAC, the tape out is in parallel with the D/A out) and set things up so I
couldn't know which source was being played...There is a tiny difference 
in the treble: the MIT cable is slightly more detailed and clear.  Maybe
not a difference worth $40 though.  I bet there are cables that offer the 
same improvement for much less (perhaps that Phoenix Gold stuff, or some
good home-built interconnects).

I asked before, and ask again: does anyone have a rational explanation
for why a $100/meter cable should do better than any reasonably well-
built cable in the <$30 range?  

Last time, I got one answer from some putz who said I should buy
some $100 cable right away because HE thought it sounded better.  He
had no idea why, either.  I don't want to see any BS replies like that -
I only want you to respond if you really have a clue.  "I bought Brand Q
cable and think it sounds good - gee, I had better, since I paid $200
for it!" is not what I consider a rational explanation.

							John Stimson
							Harvey Mudd College
Newsgroups: rec.audio