Bolder digital cable, very good

I'm a little bit hesitant to start another cable treat, since there are always seems to be magicians here who live one continent further but still can determine that all I heart is placebo (and yes, I know what that is, I've got this MD psychology) but I still wanted to share my experiences for those with a more open mind.

Recently I added a Squeezebox Touch and an Audio-GD Reference 5 and I used a simple Digiflex Gold cable with ferrite cores as my digital link, thinking digital cables are not important.

After all, all that can go wrong is added noise or jitter.

And if noise was a problem we'd all be using optical cables and jitter..sure it exists in different forms, but added by 1 meter of cable...?

Can't imagine that, but OTOH, what do I know.

I experimented briefly with a van den Hul the First Ultimate since the manufacturer claims it can be used as a superior digital interlink too. It had a slightly different sound, a little bit 'dirtier' in the treble, not much difference otherwise.

Strangely, with that cable in place when I switch my remote controlled lights on and of the DAC mutes for a second, while it plays on with the Digiflex. (BTW: A clear difference difference between digital cables that is repeatable and measurable  ) .

Anyway, I stumbled upon a glowing short review about a Bolder digital cable on Audio Asylum and since the cable was very affordable, I thought, well, let's try it.

It arrived yesterday, it has Eichman plugs and according to the the AA guy a Belden 1695a cable with an extra shield and a capacitor somewhere, probably in the plug.

Pricing seems very reasonable to me, I paid €68 for one meter.

I installed it and within seconds I noticed the sound was much more spatial, on my speaker based system, keep that in mind, sound stage is different on speakers.

Funny thing is, the AA-guy noticed exactly the same:

I did however not share his 'treble loosing some edge', in my case treble was slightly rolled off to begin with.

I already liked the tonality of my new digital source, the REF5 is really great but I always found it a pity sound stage was all slightly behind the speakers on one line without depth (while my last year Rega Apollo was able to project voices far in front of the speakers (that are cable of very spatial reproduction, especially on the StageDAC I briefly tried).

I attributed that to the DAC being R2R, since as said the Delta sigma converters I tried did project in front and the Havana and now the REF5 did not.

But suddenly it was there, 3-dimensionality, the sound clearly in front and behind the speakers, filling the room, depth was back!

Bass was already good but became also slightly deeper and the sound has lost its very slight dullness, it seems more midtreble and treble comes through (probably this causes the increased sound stage).

The extra spatial separation makes it even easier to follow voices and instruments in the mix.

What I absolutely love is that it is now impossible for me to link the sound to the speakers, the sound simply is everywhere now seemingly unrelated to the speakers.

So the shortcomings in my system that bothered me, flat sound stage and slight dullness seemed to have disappeared, a little extra bass extension is also added and so far I've not yet found aspects in the sound that have suffered from the transition, except that the added midtreble makes bad records slightly more bad.

So, also considering its modest price, a very good buy for me. Of course, YMMV, the effects -if any- from changing cables on the sound quality are very system dependent.

It probably is not that the Bolder is such a fantastic cable adding magic, but that the Digiflex and the van den Hul were simply lacking somewhere somehow on an essential property not letting through treble and thereby dulling the sound, where the Bolder is not...

I only wish I knew why, why oh WHY can a digital cable make such a surpisingly big difference??

Quote:

Originally Posted by googleborg 

I'm wondering if there was really a need to open with such provocative prose.  And knowing what placebo is, what steps did you take to ensure it wasn't biasing your perception?  Because knowing what something is doesn't make you immune to it

 

You managed to answer your first question yourself.

The difference is very clear, because the sound stage was radically altered, this is very easily noticable on my speakers, so I didn't need a DBT with a random selected panel other then to satisfy people who are rude enough to assume I'm lying/imaging things without checking out for themselves, just as I just looked out of the window and was sure it was daytime and it was raining, life would simply be impossible if every observation and conclusion should be validated by approved scientific methods.

But you are welcome to come and have listen to hear for yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Are you referring to the Boulder Cable company?

Ah yes, thank you, I'll correct that in the first post.

Edit: done, but is there still no way to change the title?

Edit2: the companies name actually is Bolder. Changed it back. Here is the URL: http://www.boldercables.com/servlet/-strse-75/DIGITAL-CABLE--dsh--Digital/Detail

I got the 1 meter version with Bullet plugs.

Quote:

My Digiflex is a Canare cable, and, as you can see from my first post, it was very definately a great upgrade in my system. The bolder is a Belden cable but with the added shield and capacitor, and the Bullet plugs.

Since my logitech Touch seems to have great digital-out in terms of jitter and noise, and my REF5 (which I love and bought also on your advice, thanks) has a jitter-rejecting DSP receiver it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect the improvements I experienced might happen in other systems too.

I'm still breaking my head as why the difference seems so much bigger then could reasonably be expected; perhaps it is something like this: a little bit better, clearer treble might leed to a substantially larger soundstage (on speakers), so that a relatively small objective improvement leeds to a large subjective improvement, does that sound plausible? 

I guess the Bolder is material wise not as good value as BJC (which Leeperry clearly pointed out) ; however, there are Eichmann plugs, an extra shield and appearantly some small capacitor added, which also leads to more manual labour.

Still, I care less about the bill of materials then for the performance and for $30,- more it thoroughly beated my Canare digiflex with ferrietes, or, in more absolute sense: this is by far the best digital cable I tried yet, for a, for me, very affordable price, YMMV.