Why do digital cables sound different?

Eldartford - assuming ideal square pulses spikes/distortions will happen to every pulse, but in reality signal has jiiter all the way thru with electrical noise etc. Imagine signal with slightly different rise time from bit to bit and cable with mismatched characteristic impedance. This will result in creation of staircases (transmission line efect) different at different bits since slew rate is different. Different shapes of different bits will be converted to jitter. Cable with perfectly matched characteristic impedance won't produce jitter in this scenario.

Second possibility is noise. Imagine shielded digital cable in the presence of electrical noise. Amount of jitter (caused by limited slew rate + noise) will depend on quality of shielding and will be different for different cables.

Third possibility - limited bandwidth. There is inherent noise on the top of digital signal (power supplies etc). Cable with limited bandwidth will reduce rise time and make this noise "visible" to receiver (gate will recognize level at different times on the slope of rising signal). Perfect cable with very high bandwitdh won't reduce slew rate and noise won't be visible.

I suspect that cable experts might bring many more explanations - I'm not an expert. It is, in my opinion, much more difficult to explain why power cables help with imaging but I don't question that they do. Audio is very subjective thing. How one knows that other person only "thinks" he hears difference? Trying to find scientific reasoning is a noble thing but we shouldn't question experience of others.

This thread started 12/01/00. I love it!!!

09-03-08: Rja
I am asking your experience with digital cables since you seem to know quite a bit about them as well as peoples perceptions of them. Surely your opinions must be based on something. Very simple Palerider."

Really? From where do yoy get that? To repeat myself; I avoid spending time on confusing theorys trying to tell why they sound different, I only conclude they shure do.
When some find it hard to hear any difference it might be simply because the involved cables do not vary that much, most doesn`t. To evaluate a digital coax you`ll need an AT&T optical reference. They outperform any overpriced mumbo-jumbo "hifi-coax" I`ve ever heard. All but the TV-coax Vivanco KX-710 :P

I'm not making ANY statements or claims about digital cables although I've listened to and owned quite a few including a number of very highly thought of cables.
You're making statements and expressing opinions on both digital cables and peoples perceptions of them. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask what you're basing your opinions on, is it? Simply put, what is your experience with digital cables? Is that just too crazy a question to ask?
I put more value in posts that state: Here's the cables I've listened to with such and such equipment, here's what I heard and here's what I think. That I can accept. Such opinions have some value to many of us.
Blanket statements with no reference point are pretty much meaningless. Nuff said!

If you`ve ever had the opportunety to use a AT&T digital as a reference you would know what I mean.