+2
I wonder how many times it has been said and will be said again, I can remember threads going back years where bespoke audiophile cables claim far better sound quality... Yet are so dodgy that its a surprise they work. I often get beaten down for being a member of the bits are bits society🙂
I wonder how many times it has been said and will be said again, I can remember threads going back years where bespoke audiophile cables claim far better sound quality... Yet are so dodgy that its a surprise they work. I often get beaten down for being a member of the bits are bits society🙂
The snag with just saying "bits are bits" is that it leaves open the question of timing. Timing does matter, as most DACs get their output timing from the SPDIF input timing. However, a competent cable can only make a small timing effect and only at HF (not audio HF, but jitter HF). The receiver PLL is specifically designed to deal with HF jitter. So all you are left with is any LF jitter, but that can't come from the cable; it comes from the clock in the digital source.
Hence any decent cable is good enough to be perfect; the only possible change in sound is downwards if the cable is really really cheap or really expensive or crazy DIY. Note that all DIY attempts to make a coaxial cable can be regarded as crazy; any attempts to send SPDIF down something which is not 75 ohm coax is super crazy.
The silence of the OP speaks volumes?
Hence any decent cable is good enough to be perfect; the only possible change in sound is downwards if the cable is really really cheap or really expensive or crazy DIY. Note that all DIY attempts to make a coaxial cable can be regarded as crazy; any attempts to send SPDIF down something which is not 75 ohm coax is super crazy.
The silence of the OP speaks volumes?
Bits are bits in my book, timing is an integral part of getting the data from a to b, so I do not differentiate, we are concerned with getting the digital data (bits) from the transmitter to the receiver with the correct signal integrity and timing (is a part of this... I don't see the need to complicate the matter, timing and digital data are inseparable that's why we use eye diagrams to determine whether the data is transmitted within the acceptable tolerances.
Bits are bits, the whole field of signal integrity is included in that, the whole basis of digital is getting 0's and 1's from a top b correctly, with the correct timing, the correct monotonic rise and fall times, minimum ringing etc. its all part of engineering a digital interface.
Bits are bits, the whole field of signal integrity is included in that, the whole basis of digital is getting 0's and 1's from a top b correctly, with the correct timing, the correct monotonic rise and fall times, minimum ringing etc. its all part of engineering a digital interface.
OK, but to most people "bits are bits" means less than that: it means getting the data there intact, with just sufficiently good timing to ensure data integrity. SPDIF needs more than that, as it also needs to preserve timing too. SPDIF is not a data transfer protocol, so cannot be compared with Ethernet, USB etc.
seem that part of the real problem that there is not a good way for folks who don't have enough of the "right" tech savvy to know when they have "junk" cable.
mlloyd1
mlloyd1
That's it in a nutshell I'd say, and it is everywhere in high end audio these days, not just spdif cables.
It doesn't need 'tech' savvy. Just avoid very cheap cables (with poor screen coverage), very expensive cables and all DIY cables. Mid-price and slightly expensive cables are probably fine. If it is good enough for standard-resolution analogue video then it is good enough for SPDIF.
You can't say "ALL" DIY cables. If I used
Spdif and built my own cables, they would be good 75 ohm coax with screen and good 75 ohm BNCs.
I realize a lot of the high end cables employ silver and the like though, so your statement applies to the majority of them...
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Spdif and built my own cables, they would be good 75 ohm coax with screen and good 75 ohm BNCs.
I realize a lot of the high end cables employ silver and the like though, so your statement applies to the majority of them...
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This is why they go on about bits not being bits etc, if they understood the whole story then maybe we would have less myths appearing regarding digital interfaces...
When I say "DIY cable" I don't mean putting a suitable connector on the end of a suitable piece of coax - I don't regard such a simple job as being DIY audio. By "DIY cable" I mean someone making the cable itself, perhaps by plaiting a number of wires together in some magic pattern which maximises RF pickup and so minimises sound quality and reliability.Pars said:
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