Review of the Oyaide DB-510 – An "analog sounding" digital cable

The Oyaide DB-510 – An analog sounding digital cable

 

Review deleted

Edited by slim.a - 10/18/10 at 4:42pm

I didn't measure it but I did some research before buying. I found out about the 75 ohms on the specs sheet of the cable. By the way, achieving 75 ohms in a coaxial cable or BNC connector is not a hard task to do. The hardest task I believe is to make 75 ohms rca connectors.

Here are some reasons I believe the claims of Oyaide about the 75 ohms charcteristic:
1. Oyaide is a trustworthy japanese company, not some small company that sell a few esoteric products on their website.
2. The cable used on the DB-510 is the FTVS-510 which has won the 2006 AUDIO EXCELLENCE AWARDS（in JAPAN). See here : OYAIDE ELEC,co,.ltd.
3. The BNC connectors that are used are the SLSB BNC connector that retail for $85 for a set of 2 (see here: Oyaide SLSB (BNC) Connector | KOSMIC.us). It is known that it is not hard to make 75ohms connectors. There are connectors such as Canare that retail for a lot less and that are known to be 75 ohms. If anything the Oyaide connectors are "overkill" unless they have a higher bandwidth than the Canare which would justify perhaps the price.

I hope these are enough reasons to convince you that it is 75 ohms. At least these were the reasons that convinced me.

Hi SoFGR, I had my dac19mk3 custom built with a BNC input. Kingwa (the owner of Audio-gd) has tested both RCA and BNC coaxial for jitter and has found that jitter in RCA is 10 times higher than BNC. All his high end DACs come a BNC input but you can always ask to have the Dac19 or maybe even the audio-gd FUN for a BNC input.

As for the Oyaide cable, i bought it from Kosmic (here : Oyaide Digital Interconnects | KOSMIC.us ) at $220 for 1.3 meters. I bought the BNC but they also seem to have the DR-510 which is the RCA version.

What I meant by "analog sounding" is that it is natural sounding and free from digitis.
If were to make an analogy with dac chips, I would say that the Stereovox XV2 sounded like a sigma-delta chip while the Oyaide sounded like the PCM1704UK chip. If you have never listened to the PCM1704UK (or maybe a NOS dac), you can leave OK with any modern delta sigma chip. However, once you listen to a better and more natural dac, you can't help but notice the digitis (or hard an not so natural timbre) on most delta-sigma chips. It is not because the data is converted into analog at the end that it necessarily mean it is "analog sounding" (like real life or a high end turntable)

It is possible that my system (and my hearing) was overemphasizing that slight metallic edge that was apparent non amplified instruments (violins, pianos, ...) and on well recorded material. On some other kind of processed music, it would probably go unnoticed.
I also was able to pinpoint that weakness because I have tried 3 other high end cables that were more natural sounding (Sobek, Actinote Aria, Oyaide). If I didn't listened to those cables for long periods in my system, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything.

Finally, system matching is very important. I am sure that in some system combinations (tube gear, ...) the Stereovox XV2 would do the job properly. But in my mind it won't be as accurate as the Actinote Aria or the Oyaide DB-510. The new Stereovox Ultra looks very intersting but is a lot more expensive than the Oyaide.

You shouldn't worry too much about BNC vs. RCA coaxial. Even if Kingwa has found that BNC has 10 times less measured jitter, I found that the difference was rather small in my system. For example I tried all digital cables in both the BNC input and the RCA input.
To use the RCA input, I used a cheap BNC to RCA adaptor (nothing fancy). The difference was rather small between the two inputs. Of course, the BNC one was superior but it was a small change in sound quality.
The change in sound quality is much bigger when changing digital cables or transports.

On the other hand, I did try the optical input with the dac19mk3 but it was clearly inferior to the spdif inputs (RCA and BNC).

If you are not planning to upgrade your dac in the short term, and in my opinion, the Hiface + Qyaide DR-510 should provide you a big jump in sound quality compared to your current source (x-fi + optical). By the way, even after listening to the 2 inputs (BNC vs. RCA), I wouldn't personally send back to china just for upgrading the BNC input. It is not worth it in my opinion as the quality of the digital cable and the source affected the sound the most.

Thanks for the nice comments guys!

After trying different digital cables, I found the Canare coaxial cable (I have an RCA version) average at best. The Belden 1694A is much more open sounding and represents a better value than the Canare in my opinion.

As for Stereovox, their new Ultra digital cable seems to have improved a few points in the design : it uses a better dieletric, better shielding and a cryo treatment (I don't really konw how effective is the last point). However, the thing that distrubs me is the us of "Mil-Spec" silver-plated copper instead of the pure silver you would expect from a cable of this price.