What is the best BNC Digital Cable under $4,000?

@buff Ron Buffington is my source for the Nordost Silver Shadow cables, he is here on Audiogon... normally I have a pair lying around but they keep disappearing as gifts.....

Uber - everybody knows the Mona Lisa was done with a Prang kid painting set from Wallymart.
but somewhere in brushstrokes the human mind has trouble with discernment of Lisa, or is it Lee ?
maybe a one or a zero got scrambled somewhere down the line...
which is why, some of us go in for an Engineers Engineer - Picasso !!!

And the ears have it!

👂👂👂👂👂👂

Second on the Jorma.  I rolled about 10 cables through before deciding on it.  Natural tone and transparent.  Smooth, not grainy.  Just a pinch of warmth.  You might be able to set up a trial.

Not that I am in any way whatsoever defending a 4K bnc cable as that does sound excessive .

But there are audible differences between lower and upper tier cables.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

I thought we already knew this part.
Measurements do not tell the complete story.

Cardas Clear Digital BNC cables are very nice.

BNC, the thing that doesn't go further than 192khz? ;)

All that is required is quality Amphenol connectors on Belden Brilliance cable. That’s what they use in recording, mixing and mastering. Everywhere. 

A $4000 BNC cable, really? I so want to think this reasonable on some level but cannot in my world.

@tomic601

One can easily say to ignore people who claim that one data cable sounds more toward sounding and Hi-Fi like than another data cable.

Binary is binary, as long as noise isn’t picked up, that’s transmission is identical.

It’s like saying the Mona Lisa would invoke different emotion if Da Vinci used paint that was 100x more expensive, despite being the same color, viscosity, etc. there are things that a data cable can alter, but making the music more toward sounding isn’t one of them, at least in actuality and not what you personally hear.

I implore you to come up with one reason how a data cable can do such a thing.

For any data cable of reasonable length, I have not seen any measurements where noise/jitter/frequency response/etc. is anything less than identical within -110dBFS.

Nordost old stock silver , under $250 ish
insanely good, perhaps a bit forward and HiFi at least vs my reference AQ Eagle Eye

i would ignore posters who can’t afford a particular price range cable and yet somehow seem to set “ truth “ somewhere below that number.....

You guys crack me up.

Instead of grasping the context of the statement you just want to dissect the wording of the statement and deduce it is trolling, retarded or insulting.

Priceless!

Granted a better analogy could have been employed. I guess it could be construed as insulting but only if you truly cannot tell any difference between cheaper and expensive cables.

But in that case I would not feel insulted , rather saddened tbh.

So digital cables, like all cables are system dependent so take this with a grain of salt. The best digital cable to my ears in my system was the Jorma Design digital cable. I believe retail is in the $12-1500 range, I picked mine up used. A really organic relaxed transparent sound. Whatever you choose good luck and I hope it suits your system!

@cleeds

Ones going against data should offer up the proof. Can you find any studies that show a $30 digital cable and a $3000 digital cable have tonal differences? I’m unfortunately not well off enough to be able to spend $4K on a digital cable. Again, I grant that better made digital cables have better noise rejection, but a digital cable is impossible in increasing stereo separation, tonal balance, etc.

A digital cable sends 1’s and 0’s, so as long as any noise picked up is below audibility, all will sound the same.

And as I said, since sighted hearing is subjective, by all means buy a better cable if it sounds better to you, just don’t go out blindly recommending it to others, as you hearing a difference does not mean one exist, beck even if one does, one can have negative bias and hear them as similar.

In terms of factual performance, getting a $4K BNC cable is just as silly as buying an external word clock for a DAC that reclocks internally anyway.

" If one cannot hear the difference between a $50 Blue Jeans bnc and a $800 Nordost Heimdall bnc cable then you should just go out and buy yourself a Wal-Mart boombox and call it done! "
What about this actual statement that underwaltz wrote makes him a troll , retarded or insulting d2girls? 

The guy who's comparing spending $50 on blue jeans cable to $4,000 on high end cable as to going to walmart to buy a boombox is trolling or quite frankly, retarded. also insulting, whats wrong buying things from walmart?

mzkmxcv

Unless it was double-blind and quick-switching, one cannot make factual statements, only subjective.

I'm not sure that's true but, assuming that it is for sake of this discussion, please tell us about the double-blind tests you conducted that led you to state this:

It’s a digital signal, spending $4K is stupid.

Please tell us who designed the test, who conducted it, and how many subjects participated. And of course, I'm interested in the actual test results.

@mrc4u, a point to keep in mind is that depending on the design of your particular components the length of the cable may be just as important, and perhaps even more important, than the type. See the following paper for an explanation:

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm

However, while the 1.5 meter length that is talked about in that paper will often be preferable to other lengths (whether longer or shorter), comparisons that have been reported here and elsewhere provide ample evidence that 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) is not always optimal. It depends on various characteristics of the specific components that are being connected, which are almost never specified or known. Those characteristics include the risetimes and falltimes of the signal that is being provided by the component driving the cable (i.e., the amount of time it takes for the signal to transition between its two voltage states); the susceptibility of the connected components to ground loop-related noise that may find its way to various internal circuit points in the component receiving the signal; and perhaps also to the high frequency components that correspond to distortions of the signal waveform, that may result from reflection effects caused by small impedance discontinuities and which may also find their way to various internal circuit points in the component receiving the signal.

While of course it would be preferable to compare a number of cables of various types and lengths, perhaps via The Cable Company, at the very least I would make a point of trying to determine what cables others have used with components that are the same or similar to yours. In that regard it appears that shkong78 has given you excellent advice.

Finally, regarding the disagreements that have been expressed above, IMO it is certainly possible for digital cables to affect sonics in various ways, including ways that can be subjectively perceived as differences in tonality, soundstaging, etc. However I would not ascribe specific tonal or other sonic characteristics to particular cables, as such differences will largely be a function of how the characteristics of the specific cables interact with the specific circuitry in the components that are being connected.

FWIW, IMO, YMMV, etc.

Good luck. Regards,

-- Al

I also have two pairs of Blackcat Silverstar II and Sablon Panatela to connect from M scaler to Chord Dave.

I need more time to compare between Blackcat Silverstar II and Sablon Panatela cables to get to clear conclusion.

But it seems that Sablon Panatela cables give more refined sound than Blackcat Silverstar II .

I recommend OP to try out pair of Sablon Panatela cable

Thomas

@auxinput

Unless it was double-blind and quick-switching, one cannot make factual statements, only subjective. Someone else could hear the same cables and yet hear no difference, and yet you can’t say he’s deaf, as you cannot prove on your own if you are hearing the “truth”.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d6/5a/ab/d65aabc7e63abc264549b9b36fbcef47.jpg
Can you tell me the color of the center square of the front facing side (the side facing you)?

However, your truth is your truth, so if you have the money to spend, buy whether cables/tweaks you want if you hear a benefit. However, be wary of recommending them to people, as your truth may not be their truth.

I’m using the BNC Digital Cables to run from my Chord M Scaler to my Chord Hugo TT2 DAC. My source component is a Cambridge Audio 851C Azur CD Player.

I'm currently using Black Cat SilverStar 75 MkII Digital BNC cables and love them!  And so I was thinking about going with their top of the line TRON model. But I was intrigued by the reviews about Synergistic Research's Galileo UEF Digital BNC cables as well and wanted to get some real-world advice/recommendations.

I'm running this to my Gryphon Diablo 300 and using Focal Sopra No.2 speakers.

I've just gone through an exercise with several digital cables and they can significantly change the character of the sound.  I completely agree with uberwaltz.

https://audiobacon.net/2019/01/04/sablon-audio-panatela-reserva-digital-elegance/

I need 6 digital cables in my complicated digital system.

Thus I am not willing to spend more than 1K$ on one digital cables.

But  Sablon Audio  Panatela is a sweet spot on performance per value.

It gives almost top quality at reasonable price.

Cable is dependent on system and personal taste.

OP had better contact Mark of Sablon Audio to get audition of its cable.

@uberwaltz 
 
I never said they had to sound identical, I did say that noise can be a factor, but one at a very low level. However, in terms of changing tonal balance, soundstage, imaging, etc. it’s all hogwash. 
 
Let’s say a portion of the audio is 0101111001010, tell me how the Nordost cable can actively alter that.

I never understand those who say a digital cable is a digital cable and cannot change the sound... What a load of old tosh!

If one cannot hear the difference between a $50 Blue Jeans bnc and a $800 Nordost Heimdall bnc cable then you should just go out and buy yourself a Wal-Mart boombox and call it done!

You do not need to spend lot of money on BNC digital cables to get good sound.

I am quite happy with  Sablon Audio  Panatela digital cable   at 550$ for 5 ft cable.

http://www.ghentaudio.com/part/e07.html

It’s a digital signal, spending $4K is stupid. And no, you can’t “tune” sound by using a digital cable, it’s either clean, picks up noise, or drops out, it can’t alter the 1’s and 0’s in the feed that make up your audio.

'There is another', as was said in the the star wars films.

In this case a new technology that deals with the reflection  and complex LCR issues in the act of transmission itself. Something that fundamentally, at the molecualr interaction level.... eliminates the issues that plague all other types in this area of cable design.

Where, when terminated with RCA connectors, still beats out all others in all possible applications and device/termination pairings, due to inherent transmission qualities. If you don't like it, you can just send it back.

What is the application you’re using it for? To a DAC or as a clock? I use a mix of Transparent Ref XL and Marigo Apparition Extreme in both these uses. Either are excellent clock cables but as DAC cables the Ref XL is warmer and works very well with red book transmission, I favor the Marigo for direct DSD.