Strange ground loop...?

awwww maaaaan. Well, thanks for the help man.

Anyone?

Alright... I took the DAC and hooked it up in a separate system on a separate circuit (only using the same LC-1 cable) annnd the noise was still there. Why it would disappear when going direct to my amp (as well as my old integrated) is a mystery to me.

Sooo..... is my DAC faulty?

Anyone? What is a cable that has a return through the shield?

"Anyone? What is a cable that has a return through the shield?"

- That's cable with only one wire (signal) inside and shield serving as second wire (ground/return). Coax cable is an example (BlueJeans cable is made of coax cable).

So is this sort of interference problem known to occur sometimes with this type of cable?

Does this problem I'm having mean my DAC has a problem?

Well I took the DAC out of my system last night and hooked it up to a second system using LC-1 for the output. The same interference noise occured

I had three pairs of LC-1 cable and tried all three as outputs from my DAC to my pre, and they all had the same problem.

If I switch cable, everything is great. If I use the LC-1 to run straight from my DAC to my amp, everything is great. It's only when running LC-1 from my dac to a pre-amp that things get ugly.

Here is my system:

Digital feed from PC via Blue Jeans Digital Coax ->
Audio Mirror D2 NOS DAC ->
Blue Jeans LC-1 ->
Richard Lee Audio Passive Pre-amp ->
Blue Jeans LC-1 ->
Yamaha M-40 ->
Blue Jeans (Belden 5000) speaker cable ->
Green Mountain Audio Continuum 1s ->
Ears.

For power:

-Computer is on separate power conditioner (this isn't the problem as I experienced the noise with the computer turned off)

-DAC and amp plugged into Furman Elite 15i. DAC is fed by Iron Lung Jellyfish power cable, amp by it's stock power cord.

That's it.

You mentioned the 'loose connection' thing... and I was thinking of something along similar lines. While nothing feels loose, the connectors on the back of my DAC are considerably long. What if the farthest I can push in the LC-1 onto these connectors just isn't enough to make contact with something that is necessary. I don't really understand the details of how this works yet, so this is a shot in the dark...

I just wanted to add... the cable would only slide down about half way of the connector post on my DAC. At that point the connector would stop because it was hitting the plastic at the back of the space between the outter ring and the inner rod of the RCA connector.

Even if this was it, it still doesn't make sense to me why it would be fine when I run directly to my amp... something to do with not having 2 different signal wires running different amplitudes maybe?

It really doesn't sound like the DAC is defective, does it? It seems more like something silly like an incompatible RCA connector...

I contacted BlueJeans and they told me that this has happened with a few other people as well. As silly as it sounds, he/she told me that I just needed to 'push harder'. There are these 'tension fingers' that form a tight lock on the RCA connector. These can cause the connector to feel like it is on all the way when really it has a little ways to go.

Unfortunately I sent my cables back... so I have now ordered some new LC-1s to see if this is indeed the solution. Crazy.