From what I've read:
Digital signals travel through the cable at very high frequencies, they are different from the signals that run through interconnects. High-frequency signals travel to the outside edges of a conductor, the "skin effect," and silver is a better conductor than copper, hence you have silver-clad cables.
I had a shoot out between USB cables in my system, Pangea PC (silver clad) vs Audioquest Forest (copper), and the Pangea wiped the floor with the Audioquest. No contest. The Forest sounded dynamically compressed, like the speakers were covered with a wet blanket. I am assuming the same would be true of digital coax, but don't know from experience.
The length of the cable matters as well, shorter is better for USB, longer is better for digital coax. The coax issue has to do with reflections within the cable that create timing errors in the signal, 1.5m minimum is what you want.
The connectors matter because their impedance can be different than that of the cable itself. All digital coax cable is 75 ohm impedance. It is difficult to create a true 75 ohm RCA connection, BNC connections are easier to create as 75 ohm. Very few DACs or CD players have BNC connections tho.
Digital signals travel through the cable at very high frequencies, they are different from the signals that run through interconnects. High-frequency signals travel to the outside edges of a conductor, the "skin effect," and silver is a better conductor than copper, hence you have silver-clad cables.
I had a shoot out between USB cables in my system, Pangea PC (silver clad) vs Audioquest Forest (copper), and the Pangea wiped the floor with the Audioquest. No contest. The Forest sounded dynamically compressed, like the speakers were covered with a wet blanket. I am assuming the same would be true of digital coax, but don't know from experience.
The length of the cable matters as well, shorter is better for USB, longer is better for digital coax. The coax issue has to do with reflections within the cable that create timing errors in the signal, 1.5m minimum is what you want.
The connectors matter because their impedance can be different than that of the cable itself. All digital coax cable is 75 ohm impedance. It is difficult to create a true 75 ohm RCA connection, BNC connections are easier to create as 75 ohm. Very few DACs or CD players have BNC connections tho.