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
Mzk, "
It’s like how I don’t need to race a Tesla Model S against a Toyota Camry to find which is faster, there are recordings of their 0-60 and 1/4 mile performances"
Measurements are not all inclusive... Even with that one measurement, the camry still sounds better :-)
A common misconception is that blind tests are proof of anything. Another common misconception is that measurements are proof of anything. They are both effective marketing ploys, however. You know, like, “measures flat 25 to 20 kHz +- 2 dB.” Or, “THD below 0.000%.” And, “blind tests will prove that aftermarket fuses are a hoax.” 😬
Please re-read what I said. I believe in double-blind tests, but they are not needed to compare DACs when measurements exists and such tests have been done to analyze the thresholds or human hearing.
It’s like how I don’t need to race a Tesla Model S against a Toyota Camry to find which is faster, there are recordings of their 0-60 and 1/4 mile performances.
Don’t
need double blind tests when measurements exists, and those
measurements are well below human audibility, which is found via
scientific blind testing.
This is an illogical circular argument, a.k.a. "begging the question." Either you believe double-blind testing is valid for establishing audio differences, or you don't. You can't have it both ways.
Don’t need double blind tests when measurements exists, and those measurements are well below human audibility, which is found via scientific blind testing.
So no then? Doesn't seem very proper for someone who rests on science. No double blind tests, no peer reviews, no measurements. Really it's just an uneducated authoritarian opinion. I've never heard any of that equipment so will not comment on which is better. If you supply the equipment I'd be delighted to run the comparison though.
Prove me wrong then; you state they do with no proof so far, yet I have shown proof, and it shows the audible differences can be treated as minimal to non-existent. I’ve never seen the Sun in person without Rayleigh scattering, but I know it will look white instead of the normal yellow/orange.
mzk, Please, please, please tell us you've heard these 2 systems in the same listening environment to come to that conclusion. If not, it is pure speculation (stated with authority) again.
All I’m saying is if your system has jitter that’s -130dBFS, that’s not an audible issue, and you shouldn’t upgrade your cables, DAC, buy a re-clocker, etc. to “fix” it. That’s like complaining that your speakers have a 0.1dB spike at 10kHz.
Spemd money where it matters, the weakest links being your speakers and the room. $10,000 cream of the crop speakers (Revel F228Be for one) and a $350 Onkyo integrated and using analog and digital cables bought at Walmart in a properly treated room will sound better than $3000 cream of the crop speakers (Ascend Acoustics Sierra Tower with RAAL for one) paired with a $10,600 Cord Dave DAC, $54,000 Boulder 2110 preamp, $99,000 Boulder 2150 monoblocks, and all Nordst Odin2 cabling ($30,000 for 1 meter of speaker cable, $20,000 for 2ft of digital interconnect, etc.), in a less than properly treated room.
mzk, You speak with such authority. I believe we are all blessed with certain abilities. Yours apparently isn't hearing. Nothing wrong with that, except when you base your hearing ability as the pinnacle & make authoritative statements based on that.
Kidding aside, I know there are other aspects to speaker wire than gauge and material, but the rest make no audible difference unless specifically designed to (and never an improvement, in terms of more accurate; but it’s rare to get a measured difference, and usually requires an amp with a terrible DF). Speaker Cable Face-Off, I seem to recognize someone’s company’s cable being tested and showing no benefit in skin effect over zip cord, despite this someone’s claims, and that no benefits were found for audible frequencies.
As I’ve already shown that any decent DAC can reduce jitter to at least -110dBFS, I would appreciate one reason why a $2000 USB cable is worth purchasing besides asthetics/build quality.
Anyone making claims of a more open soundstage by exchanging speaker wire should have such claims be taken as truth, as the two have no correlation.
You may have seen Ethan Winer’s recent video where he null tested some different speaker wire (invert polarity so any similarities cancel out), and came to the not so surprising result of having no audible differences. This is nothing new, people have done such experiments for years.
I also own a measurement mic, so it would be pretty easy to see any frequency response deviation, decay differences, etc. by changing out my analog/digital cables and speaker wire. I personally won’t do this though as it most certainly would be a waste of time and money.
"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:
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.
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.
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.
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 : +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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
@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!
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.
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. 🙄
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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