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Why does my DAC sound so much better after upgrading digital SPDIF cable?

I like my Mps5 playback designs sacd/CD player but also use it as a DAC so that I can use my OPPO as a transport to play 24-96 and other high res files I burn to dvd-audio discs.

I was using a nordost silver shadow digital spdif cable between the transport and my dac as I felt it was more transparent and better treble than a higher priced audioquest digital cable a dealer had me audition.

I recently received the Synergistic Research Galileo new SX UEF digital cable.  Immediately I recognized that i was hearing far better bass, soundstage, and instrument separation than I had ever heard with high res files (non sacd),

While I am obviously impressed with this high end digital cable and strongly encourage others to audition it, I am puzzled how the cable transporting digital information to my DAC from my transport makes such a big difference.

The DAC take the digital information and shapes the sound so why should the cable providing it the info be so important. I would think any competently built digital cable would be adequate....I get the cable from the DAC to the preamp and preamp to amp matter but would think the cable to the DAC would be much less important.

I will now experiment to see if using the external transport to send red book CD files to my playback mps5 sounds better than using the transport inside the mps5 itself.

The MPS5 sounds pretty great for ca and awesome with SACD so doubt external transport will be improvement for redhook cds


128x128karmapolice

Showing 3 responses by path73

path73
11 posts
 
Maybe the paper referenced below will shed some light on the complexity of jitter for those that believe that a simple value in some clock or DAC datasheet can Trump this effect for good.
Audibility of some forms of jitter on DACs and ADCs have been investigated, but I believe that the improvements that most of us hear when jitter is reduced tend to indicate that audibility thresholds are not so easy to define and greatly depend not only on the technology used inside the chips, but also on the implemented circuitry around those chips (e.g. power supply management).
My 2 cts worth, /patrick

https://statics.cirrus.com/pubs/whitePaper/WP_Specifying_Jitter_Performance.pdf
path73
11 posts
 
@dynaquest4: very quick AB lets you pick up changes but it may be advisable to validate that by switching after longer periods of time, typically several days with interruptions and sleep to get a fresh ear on it.

Another thought: if heavily processed electronica music is used to optimize your system, you will never end up with an accurate result. It is sometimes shocking to realize that loved albums are really not that good...
path73
11 posts
 

rocknss8 posts11-24-2018 5:34pmAre there any studies showing the cable improvements by placing a instrumentation microphone at the listening position?
I am not aware of such results, but I too strongly believe that it would make things a lot clearer for everyone if there was a way to identify a type of "distortion" related to jitter for which the amplitude could be measured based on the resulting acoustic signal and compared for different components.
In the end, audibility is no voodoo or placebo, but refers to the sensitivity of our sensory apparatus and processing abilities, which have finite bandwidths and thresholds for the auditory illusion to happen when listening to sounds reproduced by a stereophonic audio system.
In my experience, reducing jitter in digital audio systems lets us experience reproduced music in a way that ressembles more the output of a turntable (whatever the words to describe this subjective effect are).
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