Digital Cables and Analog...interchangable?

Pull up BlueJeansCable.com and read his excellent explanation of this topic. And try the Belden 1694 cable for audio,video, and digital. You could be surprised by how good Belden cable is. Wonder how many of these high priced cables have Belden or Canare wire under their fancy wrap???

In most situations, you can interchange an "analogue" interconnect for a "digital" cable without major problems. Having said that, one may run into issues with increased jitter, poorer sound, RFI, the inability of the transport to synchronize with the DAC ( won't go into "lock" mode ), etc... Most of this has to do with shielding ( or lack of it ), signal leakage, digital reflections i.e. "VSWR", etc....

If you've tried a specific cable, it works between the transport and DAC and you like the results, it doesn't matter whether the cable was marketed as "digital" or "analogue". It's simply passing signal and the mating circuitry is stable enough to deal with it. Sean
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PS... the standard for a "digital" RCA cable is based on an appr 75 ohm figure. Balanced / XLR is based on an appr 110 ohm standard from what i can recall. Analogue based RCA's can be anywhere from 50 - 100 ohms or so.

As I understand it, digital coaxial cables are 75 ohm and digital AES/EBU (XLR connectors) cables are 110 ohm. That said, I have used half an analog pair cable in place of a digital cable at times and it can work fine. Whether the digital coax or the analog sounds better in your system will be for you to decide. I use the AES/EBU and it sounds best to me.

They're not interchangeable.

Digital are 60 ohm and analog stereo 75? Here I've been thinking proper impedance for digital interconnects was 75 ohm, at least for SP/DIF.

why not just try the analog interconnect as a digital cable and hear the affect on the sound of your stereo system ?

I guess I always thought digital was 75 ohm. I know Rick Shultz at Virtual Dynamics says you can interchange them and they are exactly the same. I have a virtual digital revelation signature and have thought of getting another digital rev signature to get a pair for analog rca interconnects.

Stereo interconnects are usually 75 ohm and digital audio interconnects are usually 60 ohm, so there is a difference.