Lillee
Member of the Trade: Tralucent Audio
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2012
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Still in this regard...
I am annoying, I know...
Anyway... The HP-P1 comes with a short 30 pin to usb cable.
If using an iPod classic or 4th gen touch with 30 pin connector, is it worth it to upgrade said cable to something like an ALO Cable?
Will sound be different and better? Or since it is carrying digital binary data, it will sound the same.
Cheers!
Let me explain by way of a fictional analogy:
If you had a Ferrari 458 and asked whether it mattered if you upgraded from Pirelli P Zero stock tyres to the new Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres, the answer would be yes, you'd gain 0.5 secs a lap at the Nurburgring which is not a small amount of time for a Ferrari on race day.
If you then asked if the Pirelli P Zero Corsa's will make a difference over the Stock P Zero Tyres on your Toyota Corolla, then the answer is don't waste your money.
Similarly, if you are running lowfi straight from your Fostex and listening to MP3's then it probably won't matter and you won't hear a difference. If however you are running a dedicated external amplifier, playing lossless audio to a pair of magnetic planar headphones then yes, there is an appreciable difference.
Digital binary data and how it was explained to me in layman's terms: Digital audio is not all entirely error free when it comes to music streaming. There are still interference and signal losses when streaming large bandwidth data. This is not a PC to PC situation where you are sending a digital file and both ends have error correcting algorythms that request resending of data that was corrupted or incomplete due to interference or signal losses. In this case the ipod is sending out streams of 0's and 1's, a few missed 1's and a few missed 0's in streamed music data is not going to picked up by the Fostex as it will accept whatever it is given and analogue convert whatever it is given. There is no error correction in the sense that it says "hang on is that right mr ipod? can you resend". It will just convert what it is given. I think it is called "signal clipping" if you want to google it, but not entirely sure what the term is. The better shielded cable with better signal will give you a more true and accurate stream of data.
That above can totally be wrong however, you judge for yourself.