Best 0.5m Coaxial Cable Under $75 (New Or Used) - Page 2

Chris Own of Ack! Industries who makes the Ack! dAck! sells both his own digital cable which is made with Belden 1695A/Canare RCA's and the HDXV. He says "the Sterevox HDXV digital interconnect has a less detailed midrange than the 1695A cable, but can be more organic sounding by tempering the strong midrange detail that can occur with the 1695A cable in thin-sounding and slightly etched systems. The tonal quality is more laid back than the 1695A, and offers a different, but still extremely alluring view of the sound." Sounds to me if you have a brighter system you might go for the HDXV.

I'm not sure if the Jon Risch recipe calls for Canare connectors?? If it doesn't than it's likely inferior. His recipe is pretty simple really, just tells you how to make it actually. Bolder switched from using Canare to Bullet plugs, mainy because that's all he uses now and he likes to keep up with what's the "vogue" thing right now. Again, I have to wondr if even Bullet plugs carry a true 75 ohm impedance characteristic like the Canare's do. That impedance characteristic thing is very important if you want to squeeze out the best performance. Bolder does add a third outer braid shield however with a small ceramic cap terminating the shield to ground. If you have a very noisy environment then that extra shield could help. But for another 60 bucks or more, eh, I don't know.

If you are using a computer as a transport then the DIP is pretty nice thing to have. The RME is a nice card as a source but in your scenario you wouldn't be using it as a source, just a means to output the digital signal. Does that thing have optical output? If so, then here in effect you are comparing the Sonica's Toslink output performance verus the RME's Toslink output performance. I'm not seeing a huge difference there. From what I gather the RME is a very good source itself and I have to wonder if it isn't going to blow your receiver's performance away - modified or not. Maybe you just simply use an RME as your source and be done with it. If not, and if you are going to use your computer as a transport, then your plan of using a DIP is a good one but again I'm not sure if your receiver's DAC section is going to be as good as an RME. Honestly, I'm thinking you aren't going to hear any sort of HUGE difference regardless of what digital cable you use between a DIP and your receiver's input. If you were talking about a link between a DIP and a Meridian DAC, for exmaple, then yeah I'd be haggling big time over which digital cable to get.

Tough to say as I have never heard an RME or the SN tube DAC. Given all the research I did of non-oversampl/filterless DAC's, including the SN DAC's and ultimately deciding on the Ack! dAck!, if I had a gun to my head I would make a guess they will in fact sound better than the RME. I'll probably get flamed for that, but it's just my opinion. The Ack! dAck! is a special sounding DAC, I have been absolutely thrilled with it. It is so darn analog sounding, so quiet, full and has such good flow. If SN will build a optical input into a tube DAC for you that might be a very interesting option!

I too had considered Blue Jeans Cables, but ultimately went with Paul at copycatcables.com. I ordered the Belden 1695A that Jon Risch recommends. Paul's work is very good, and the prices are as low as you're likely to find. I only use the cable to connect my Yamaha guitar preamp to my M-Audio Delta 410 card for recording purposes, though.