Why do digital cables sound different?

I want a DAC with a slot for PC133 SDRAM, a 5 1/4 drive bay and an IDE controller. Those features should cost less than $60 retail (motherboards do that and a lot more for $60). I'll drop in 128 megs of RAM from crucial for $35. I'll plug in a 40x Plexwriter for $90 with a $3 IDE cable. Then the DAC can expect 100% accurate data to pour into the buffer at several times the playback speed. All it needs to do is pull out samples every 1/44100th of a second and do its thing with them.

If you think streaming bits from a buffer is somehow inferior to streaming them from an external component... well, uh... good for you, I guess. I hear that buffing bits smoothes them over and takes the harshness off the music, but to each his own.

Seriously, if $300 digital cables make a difference, we need to demand better hardware, plain a simple.

This discussion died off. Why?
I'm in the "I can hear a difference and I don't know why" camp between Coax/RCA terminated cables. Some expensive digital cables sound better than the HAVE Canare, some sound worse. I dunno.

I have noticed that there ARE differences, but that they do not seem to correspond to price, etc.

Fiber optic, IMO, is the best, and the cleaner the optics, the less distorted the signal , so theory would go.

But I do notice that, even my $20 Monster Toslink outperforms my $200 "digital" coaxial cable.

The cheif designer of Musical Fidelity products swears that ANY transport will do when using digital links to the DAC! I am not an expert, but I did notice that my Panasonic DVD player soundes better using the Toslink than my Rotel does via the coax digital. This is odd, since the Panasonic set me back around $70.00, and the Rotel about $450...USED!

In Rotel's defense, however, I simply LOVE their DAC (RDP 980). I have compared it to a few others consting WAAAY more, and the Rotel seems to hold its own NO PROBLEMS!

Water dripping sounds, drum beats/cymbal decays, and plucked strings are all quite remarkable via the Rotel DAC.

Mickey Hart, "Planet Drum" and Bela Fleck "Live Art" are two of my fave discs to show-off my Hi Fi system.

Bela Fleck "Perpetual Motion" is another great disc, and I can hear subtle differences between interconnects SIMPLY by listening to Fleck's fingers slide up and down the banjo strings.

Even the cheapest fiber optic cables reveal THREE times more detail than the coaxes, in my system...

your mileage may vary.

Joe M.

Here is my digital cable upgrade path over last 3yrs, getting slightly better sound each step at lower prices:

AZ Mc2 $300 --> WW Supernova III glass toslink $100 --> Sonicwave glass toslink (280 fibers) $25 --> Stereovox HDVX $100 currently used.

Still have my $25 glass toslinks around one of best examples of "bang for the buck" ever in my cable buying experience.

Over spring break, I had a chance to listen to my Rotel/coax vs. my Panasonic/optical.

The first impression was one of much more oppeness, and a deeper sound around instruments with the optical output.

*HOWEVER*, cymbal crashes, esses, fingered strings, etc all sound FAR better via the coax!

For highly digital source material, like "The Matrix," the optic input adds a nice effect, making everything "feel" digital. It also seems to portray a tad mote bass (but it actually just muddies it up, when compared a/b).

I used my own, and a friend's copy of the Rolling Stone's "Love You Live" disc, and could simply switch between the two units on my Rotel DAC. The crowd sounds bigger, the clapping more real, and the music more convincing via the coax.

I'll admit I was hasty the first time I posted, and I'll think twice, er, listen twice before running my mouth next time!