I think it’s good to start with a decent pro cable from Worlds Best or similar. I just swapped a Worlds Best AES ($25) for a Wireworld silver coax ($500) and I’m not sure I hear a difference. But I recall your other post about cables and I said to upgrade dac and I’ll say it again. You’ll get better sound with an upgraded dac as opposed to trying to fix the one you have with reclocking boxes, cables and whatever other band aids you throw at it. IMO of course. But I would check out Worlds Best for starters and figure the rest out later. Good luck.
Streamer to Denafrips Iris to Pontus need cable suggestions please
I’ve got a Iris on the way to mate to a Pontus and have no idea of the type or brand or the quality/price cable I will need. It’s coming from Auralic g2 which has usb, coax, aes, tos, lan. L-link.
What type and brand/ model do I go from Auralic to Iris. Then what type cable and then brand/ model do I use fro Auralic to Pontus.
There will be a HiDiamond RCA’s going from Pontus to Audio Hungary a50i. Audience au24 se and TG Audio speaker cables going to Joseph audio Pulsar and Reference 3a towers.
I know this is a lot to ask but I am not familiar with digital cables. Only digital cable I ever owned is a spdif. I’m using a JPS Labs superconductor true digital coax from streamer to Pontus now. Can I get away without spending a lot of money since some say it’s just digital, probably not, sure hope so.
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Looks like USB is your obvious choice from Aurender to Iris. Iris and Pontus both support AES/EBU and I2S. The problem with I2S is there isn't a good standard and few great cables. I would lean toward AES/EBU. I'm using an audiosensibility silver signature cable and it is spectacular. Avoid optical and coax digital. all digital cables should be either silver or silver plated. That is what my ears tell me and I think it handles the high data density better. also, forget everything you've heard about silver wrt analog cables. Jerry |
DH Labs makes good, high-value cables that don’t break the bank. Here is a good USB cable you can use from the Aurender to the Iris and an HDMI cable you can use from the Iris to the Pontus to take advantage of its i2S connection. BTW, you want the HDMI cable to be as short as possible as i2S degrades rapidly with distance. I also have an Iris running i2S into my DAC and noticed a very big improvement over SPDIF. https://silversonic.com/products/digital-cables/hdmi-2-1/ Hope this helps, and best of luck. |
Thanks everyone, glad to hear USB is way to go. Guy that sold me Iris threw in a a DB Labs The Essential USB for $20 extra,retail $300 have no idea if it’s good or not so I’ll use it for now. The Iris is the 12th so it has the added RJ45 cable, have no clue on this one either. I will look at DH Labs ( like the price) and AES/EBU. What’s the story on the RJ45 since they added it in the 12th does that make it better a better connection? |
The RJ45 connection is another way to pass i2s. I don't have experience using the RJ45 connection, but I have used the HDMI connection between the Gaia and Terminator Plus. I have an early Gaia and early Terminator Plus, and with the firmware update, the i2s connection between these two boxes is no longer compatible, so I have had to switch back to AES. Before the firmware update, I preferred i2s over AES, but I do like the firmware update so I'm living with AES. I also like DH-Labs for reasonably priced digital cables. I'm currently using their AES cable. |
@jaytor you can set your gaia to "000" and then try different I2s setting on the Terminator. I had to do this on my Hermes/Venus II and it works again.
> Please go through the guide detailed here: 3. Set Hermes i2s to mode 000. |
@fthompson251 - Unfortunately, my Gaia does not have programmable i2s settings. This feature was not provided in the first version. |