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
MW - There are several techniques. Lets address each of them:
Synchronous buffering:
With synchronous buffering, the same clock is moving the data in and out of the FIFO buffer, so the incoming clock jitter matters.
Local PLL clock:
If you have a local clock that is locked to the incoming clock with a PLL to clock the data out of the FIFO, then the PLL filter loop is affected by the jitter.
Bang-Bang bracketing system:
If you have a bang-bang system that clocks the data out of the FIFO using a local clock which moves the frequency slightly up and down to bracket the frequency of the incoming clock, then this has the potential to minimize the effects of incoming jitter. IT is actually not meeting the spec. for sample-rate frequency though. This is one of two techniques that can actually be immune to incoming jitter. The problem is that it takes 12 custom oscillators, all with low jitter to pull this off. If one designs it any other way, then the jitter of the local clock is the problem. There are a couple of DACs out there that do this, but their jitter is not very low.
Resampling system:
A resampler uses separate local clocks to reclock the data at a new frfequency after it is synchronously buffered to achieve a small delay. Resampling is the second technique that in theory has the potential to be totally immune to incoming clock jitter. It maintains the proper sampling frequencies. The reality is that even the best reclockers, including mine are still slightly affected by incoming jitter. This is likely due to the implementation of the resampling chips.
Steve is not wrong. He is a very qualified engineer IME. He knows what all the problems in the entire system are, and how to solve them. I had the SMR with the latest improvements. I sold it because my Server is better, and of course, more convenient. I was able to beat the performance of the SMR, yes, but at multiple times the cost of that little magic box.... The SMR is a little monster, you can use any crap source you want in front of it, and get truly world class sound out of it.
He is also not wrong about "claimed" resolving systems, and he clued you all in on perhaps the biggest offender in the system chain, the preamp. One would be wise to listen. The damage a volume control causes alone, is just insane, and ANY volume control, no matter, is a compromise. There are very few active preamps that can make the claim of being truly transparent and resolving.
Getting a preamp with no mechanical connections, no switch contacts, no traditional volume control, no wires (all circuit board), is completely 100% electronic from input to output, changed my world. I just hope you stick around Steve, and not let people burn you out.
I’m late in responding to this, but I agree there is absolutely a difference in digital cables. I run USB from my PC to my DAC. I recently changed the cord due to relocation of my DAC. I did NOT do this in order to achieve better sound. I thought “bits are bits”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The difference was significant. Like listening to two different DAC’s head-to-head. Not going to say one was better, but they were CLEARLY different. As luck would have it I preferred the new cable.
Yes, they do measure differently, especially longer runs. However, any decent DAC (even $100, but talking cream of the crop), will reduce any errors below audibility.
If you hear a difference, then it’s time to get a better DAC. Just out of curiosity, is your DAC a Schiit? Because Schiit gear don’t typically handle dither/jitter as well as it’s competitors.
If you’re asking me, I have a Chord DAC. While not cream of the crop, it’s not a piece of crap, or a Schitt. And how is a DAC supposed to correct it? The DAC will do what’s it’s supposed to with the signal it receives.
DACs do in fact have jitter reduction, and a J-Test is done when measuring them, Stereophile always performs one for instance. The test doesn’t introduce picoseconds/nanoseconds of jitter, but instead uses frequencies, so I don’t know the correlation but it’s stated as worst case scenario levels of jitter.
Chord makes good DACs, not sure which model you have, but let’s look at their $500 Mojo:
Both sources show it reducing jitter to below 120dB, enough for 24bit data to have zero jitter no matter how long or cheap your cables are (EMI is a different thing), and also well below your room’s noise floor. Also, take note the measurements are different as Stereophile does jitter tests for 44.1kHz and ASR does jitter tests at 48kHz, Stereophile also used a tone that’s -6dBFS and ASR does 0dBFS.
And yes, that’s the only difference a digital cable can introduce, frequency response, THD, and everything else would be identical.
So unless you are cranking your amplifier above full scale, there will be no difference no matter the digital cable.
I have a Chord Qutest ($1,800). And again, the point of the new cable was *not* an attempt at better sound. But the difference in sound was definitely there. And, no I wasn’t running the amp loud. 9:00 on a knob that starts at 7:00. I was of the mindset that bits are bits, so I was mildly shocked. Not trying to argue, but tests or no tests there was a difference. Just sharing my unbiased opinion.
Indeed, regardless of a test, you did hear a difference, and that’s all that matters at the end of the day (for you). However, tests tell us if there actually is a difference, rather than just hearing one. I said this in my initial comments for this thread, but people describe differences in a amp even though it was the same unit, so differences are heard with the same system, since you changed the system by using a different cable, it’s easy to understand that you heard a difference.
indeed, regardless of a test, you did hear a difference, and that’s all that matters at the end of the day (for you).
How condescending of you.
However, tests tell us if there actually is a difference, rather than just hearing one.
Not true. No testing equipment exists that can hear. It can only grab a moment in the musical event and analyze a fragment of it, not the complete event. Our ears take in info in a non linear fashion that no instrument can duplicate, on the fly. What equipment can discern organic vs. lean? Or separation vs. congealed? I could go on but it would be all for naught.
I said this in my initial comments for this thread, but people describe differences in a amp even though it was the same unit, so differences are heard with the same system, since you changed the system by using a different cable, it’s easy to understand that you heard a difference.
You left out "some" between the words, 'but' and 'people' which makes your conclusion a faulty, but clever, one.
This is one sly troll. He claims he can't hear all that well, is a whizz at math, and uses links and quotes to speak for what he, himself, can't hear or distinguish. Toss in some condescendingly obtuse insults and Bob's your uncle.
To add to my thoughts- I was so convinced there would be no difference I purchased a $30 cable. This was not some fancy audiophile cable. I would equate the difference to swapping speaker cables. I have no idea what a test would show, but clearly different speaker cables sound different even using the same material and gauge.
Speaker cable can have difference in say interference (twisted cables help for longer runs), so yes.
@nonoise
Sorry, but none of that is factually sound. Test equipment can indeed not hear, but it can measure everything that we are hearing, and we use human trials to see what audibility thresholds are. If I brought everyone on Earth 1 by 1 into chrisg1000’s room to listen to the different USB cables and not a single other human on the face of the planet hears a difference, does that mean that chrisg1000 simply has the best hearing on Earth, or the more logical conclusion that it’s placebo? Jitter is the only difference with digital cables, and his DAC easily reduces it so that it’s 100% non-existent in 24bit content (even if playing 32bit, no one can hear lower than -130dBFS.
There is nothing about our hearing that we can’t measure.
Test equipment cannot measure everything we hear. To say we're at the apex of our ability to capture and measure everything that we can hear is absurd. That you can correlate to a numeric value and collate the data must give you goose pimples but you're over simplifying an incredibly complex mechanism: our ears and the ability to hear.
Yeah, sorry dude. You’re nuts. It’s not placebo. It’s quite the opposite. I expected it to be the same and it was not. This has nothing to do with good hearing.
So mzk, To add to nonoise's correct observation above... Does your placebo avoidance equipment (that equipment that science has graciously gifted us with to save audiophiles money & make non-audiophiles feel smarter) actually measure sound stage width, depth, & instrument separation, or are you under the impression that those changes must be in the audiophiles head as well?
Soundstage width is an aspect of the recording, the speakers, and the room. So it depends what aspect you want to measure. For speakers, it’s simply directivty, how attenuated the signal gets off-axis.
Soundstage depth is done via time/amplitude/phase alterations. A perfect binaural recording for instance played on “perfect” headphones would perfectly replicate our natural hearing.
Instrument separation is simply just a combination.
Wow. I really didn’t want to go there. And, while having lurked here for many years I’m new to posting. I don’t know this individual. But, I can see why people share a negative opinion of this person. It’s like talking to a know-it-all brick wall. I’ll run some tests and verify that. 🙄
I was asked a question so I answered. What makes a speaker have good soundstage width is actually a pretty simple question, so nothing really to debate.
Again, what I don’t know, is why you are hearing a difference; it’s not jitter as we established your DAC is good enough (which is the original argument I had with @audioengr), but I did hypothesis that maybe it’s a grounding issue with your amp (which is only excited with the cheaper cable as maybe it didn’t meet transmission specs (which is common, especially for microUSB, even Anker don’t meet standards), which could be checked with a multimeter.
@audioengr thank you for the recommendation. could you explain what the Toslink cable you recommended does differently and how you’ve experienced it’s superority? Just curious, as you mentioned you didn’t have a way to test toslink jitter. Thanks!
leemaze - the Toslink I recommend uses a high-quality polished plastic fiber. I experimented with many glass fiber cables, but I realized that this plastic cable just sounded better. Usually it's the light distortion in the cable that causes signal degradation due to imperfect polishing of the ends or imperfect polishing of the outer fiber. This cable evidently delivers the light with less reflections and distortions. It may also have to do with the index of refraction of this particular plastic. It is unlike other plastic cables.
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.
Though the impulses are digital by nature, the way they are transferred through the cable is still electricity. Some cables apparently do a better job at preserving the integrity of those digital impulses. I found the same phenomena to be true also with USB cables. Once we get out of our heads that its only 'pluses and minuses,' we can begin to find out what sounds better for our taste in sound. People have become hindered by the "digital mystique" that started in the launching of the digital era. Its not only about +'s and -'s.
You know I have no idea how I could possibly get to the end of this thread because of the utter rubbish that is being spouted. To the people who say that cables don't make a difference why don't you take all your cables that you have at the moment and replace them with cheap stuff that you Americans would say comes from a nickel and dime store and listen to your units for a whole week of at least two hours a day. Now after that is done get a mate to loan you some upmarket cables and do the same and listen to it for another week. If you don't notice a difference straight away and I'll give some of you two days time and it is not patently obvious to you that there is a massive difference then please take a tip from me and sell your stuff because you plainly cannot hear properly. I bet in all this time you have not even considered the people who are responsible for the content of your disc or file "the musicians" . I happen to be a musician myself and although I was never blessed with perfect pitch I know when something goes awry. say you are sitting in a recital hall and one of the players violins goes flat on a string then everyone instantly hears it even people who say they are tone deaf , but absoloutely no one is tone deaf. The same applies to high end music systems and that is why a lot of musicians don't listen to audio because they know it rarely sounds like real music, it is only a representation of real music. Why don't you do yourselves a favour and stop the carping because clearly no one will win.
@audioengr thank you. what would you recommend for a toslin-to-mini-toslink convertor? For compatibility with an airport express or chromecast audio
These are a dime a dozen. Never seen anything but the generic ones.
It should not really matter because one should never drive a DAC with a Toslink anyway. Too much jitter. Go Toslink to a Synchro-Mesh and then a good BNC coax cable from Synchro-Mesh to the DAC.
If you don't notice a difference straight away and I'll give some of you two days time and it is not patently obvious to you that there is a massive difference then please take a tip from me and sell your stuff because you plainly cannot hear properly.
I agree, and they can stop posting drivel on these forums too. It's getting aggravating.
Drivel as in measurements showing the differences are insignficant? Also yes, you heard plastic optical cables as better sounding than glass because plastic ones do measure better. And also, yes, USB cables of shorter length measure better than ones or longer length, but also bargain bin USB and “audiophile-grade” USB measure near identically.
And again, any decent DAC will reduce jitter to at least below say -110dBFS, so all these differences before the DAC can indeed be ignored, unless you are cranking your amplifier above full scale.
And yes, I’ve used wire bough at Walmart and wire that was much more expensive, no difference. Getting a sufficient gauge and maybe twisted for decent runs are pretty much all that matters. And no, you don’t have to listen for days to begin to appreciate the difference, our recall ability is about 15sec to my knowledge, so if you can’t immediately hear a difference, than any difference you hear latter on is not real.
Just to point out for those that don’t know, there is $10,000 amplifier challenge for anyone who can differentiate between two amps that are level matched, operating at volumes with THD below 2%, amplifying linearly (no tubes or bass boost), etc. This has been going on for almost 30 years, and not a single person could do better than 65% accuracy (24 guesses). So if anyone believes they can hear a difference, here’s your chance to win $10K. Over a thousand people (of course the majority are fellow audiophiles) have taken it and all failed.
mxkmxcv “And no, you don’t have to listen for days to begin to appreciate the difference, our recall ability is about 15sec to my knowledge, so if you can’t immediately hear a difference, than any difference you hear latter on is not real.”
>>>>I did not know that. Do you have anything to support the 15 sec rule? I swear my aural memory is a lot longer than 15 sec. Perhaps even weeks or months. Of course I might have a photographic memory.
Belden 4794R SDI cable from BlueJeans works very well for not too much money if you have BNC on at least one end an adaptor doesn't compromise thigs too much if you only have RCA on the other. It's a bit on the stiff side mind, you can't bend it too sharply. I used one in preferance to Chord Sureline or Fairway digital cables. Disc drive was Naim Core, DAC either Rega DAC-r or Chord 2Qute. Compared to the Chord cables it livened up the Rega and allowed some emotion to be heard from the rather sterile sounding 2Qute.
@mzkmxcv : +1! You might be the only sane person on this site! Kudos to you for bringing up the $10K amp challenge! I agree with you on this! Same can apply to DAC's! And wire, too! The MAJOR difference in SQ is first and last (and always) the SPEAKER! Not the preamp, amp, DAC, wire! Sadly, people have a tendency to hold on to irrational beliefs, even when they have been shown incontrovertible proof proving the opposite!
I’m all for improvements and tweaks; I am not for placebo and snake oil. A $10,000 speaker wire won’t sound better than a $50 one, and a $2000 USB cable won’t sound better than a $20 one (all assuming same gauge/length/etc.). Claims being posted here, such as Steve Nugent saying that he heard a drastic difference going from 22psec to 7psec of jitter (>20Bit to <22Bit, which is >120dB to <132dB of dynamic range; and again, before the DAC, which reduces jitter) is just furthering already debunked myths, which leads people with fat wallets to spend thousands on cables and accessories that won’t fix these “issues”. One debunked myth is that silver cables sound brighter than copper cables, they don’t, they just conduct electricity a bit better so decibel loss is a tad less over the same distance, and yet going a single gauge better for copper will have even less loss and cost a heck of a lot cheaper.
I don’t care if people sell high-end cables for asthetics or better construction (I pay more for nice braided, pre-terminated speaker cables), I do care if they lie and say they are perform better (like solid core, which is worse than stranded; or cryo-freezing to align the crystalline structures).
However, as a I stated earlier, if someone bought such items and they did hear an improvement, then it was money well spent. Just keep in mind people sincerely claim to hear improvements using these.
mzkmxcv, It appears the article you linked to actually has nothing to do with aural memory as we audiophiles commonly refer to it. If aural memory of audiophiles was 15 sec. we would never be able to progress beyond the level of mid fi. No offense. That’s the equivalent of movie Memento, that exploited the issue of short term memory loss. As I already stated my aural memory is very long, at least days or weeks, if not even longer. In fact I remember in general terms, at least, what I heard on a system almost 50 years ago.
You are using memory in the general sense, no one can recall if a stereo system they listened to 50yr ago was bright, had good imaging, etc., not even if you had an Eidetic memory (as that’s visual).
I’m am talking about the auditory recall to be able to differentiate frequency response, soundstage width, etc.
No, actually I’m not using my memory in the general sense. Only for the 50 year example of my memory. Even then I recall details like midrange, Dynamic Range and bass response, mainly because it was so, uh, memorable. Some memories remain fresher than others. But I can recall what I heard three weeks ago at a friend’s house with more specificity. Sorry about your hearing. What concerns me quite a bit more than aural memory is the fact that so many people don’t know what they are listening to or how to compare two sounds that are subtly different.
"A $10,000 speaker wire won’t sound better than a $50 one, and a $2000 USB cable won’t sound better than a $20 one"
and:
" One debunked myth is that silver cables sound brighter than copper cables, they don’t, they just conduct electricity a bit better so decibel loss is a tad less over the same distance, and yet going a single gauge better for copper will have even less loss and cost a heck of a lot cheaper. "
He loses all credibility. It is obvious that either his hearing is impaired or that his system cost is much less than $20K. Maybe he has never experienced HiFi sound quality. Everyone I talk to says that around $30K is the threshold to enable Hi-FI sound quality versus mid-Fi sound. I agree with this based on 22 years of anecdotal evidence and experience. Everything in the system matters. It is a system, not just a collection of parts. One deficient component or cable can change everything.
It is also obvious that he understands nothing about the physics of audio cabling when he claims conductivity and wire gauge are the only concerns.
We all know better. Perhaps a more appropriate forum for him to post on is:
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