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Can a digital cable have different connectors?

I purchased a Chord MScalar to use with my current and future DACs. Unfortunately, the MScalar only has optical and BNC outputs. While this is fine because my current DAC has a BNC input, many other DACs I’m interested in does not.  Seems like SPDIF cables can have different terminations like RCA or BNC.


Can a digital cable work with one end terminated with BNC and the other end another type of connector?

kennyc

Showing 2 responses by auxinput

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

You should look for a BNC only digital cable and then use a BNC-to-RCA adapter for the one end going into an RCA connection.  This actually works out better than if the cable was terminated with an RCA plug.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

I’ll ask them if they will terminate to RCA on one side which seems sonically better than an an added layer of an a BNC to RCA adapter

I have done lots of tests with these types of terminations.  In all cases, a cable with BNC termination plus a BNC-to-RCA adapter sounded superior to a cable just terminated with an RCA plug.  The RCA has a much lower impedance and I found that you just lose high frequency detail in the music.

 

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