Esoteric SPDIF cable

[Yomanze]

I'm a cable believer, but 'transformed my system' would be an overstatement unless there was some audible colouration (like TQ Black). For me it's the icing on the cake, but I would like to introduce an important cable tweak in my system, which is using massively long SPDIF cables. For me it gives a more natural sound than shorter cables.

I just ordered a 16ft Belden / Canare RCA cable, which if you put your name in here I would like to post to, with the next poster in this thread to receive the cable from the next etc.

The SPDIF interface has signal reflections literally (not intentionally) designed into it due to impedance mismatches (sort of how you can bounce radio waves off the ionosphere), and of course the longer the cable (within reason) the lower the impact of reflections. Maybe this is a crackers idea, so have a try!

[Yomanze]

OK maybe not enough in terms of interest to get this thing sent around. However, if you'd like to try this cable then let me know. :) I'll send it with a return envelope with P&P included. Best way to use it is to keep the velcro strap intact & coiled up as in the pic, adjust as necessary for your system length requirements.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i405/neil_yeomans/2012-11-26105449.jpg

[Yomanze]

Still no one interested in having a play around with this?

The inspiration came from here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080205113300/http://www.analogresearch-technology.net/ubyte.html

An extract (and an explanation of why this cable is so damn long):

"In an ideal situation, the load impedance perfectly matches the cable impedance, and all of the signal is absorbed, and none of it is reflected back to the source. Of course, there never is an ideal situation, and none of us live in an ideal world. In the real world, part of the signal is always reflected back to the source. Where part of that reflected signal gets reflected back to the load end.

Where it arrives along with some other bit of signal information! Isn't that nice? (No, that is bad news!)

While "bits is just bits" when you have a nice bit arriving at the time when a fraction of a previous bit arrives.......hey, that isn't supposed to happen! Is it? Of course not. But it does. All the time.

The result of the desired bit arriving at the right place and at the right time, but mingling with part of some other bit, arriving at what surely must be both the wrong place and time, leads to problems.

Just how is that, you ask.

Simple.

Suppose that undesired signal (let's call it a reflection, because that is what it is) arrives at the decision point. You know, the point in the data stream where the bit is recognised as either a "1" or a "0". While the reflection is always of a small enough level that it will not cause an error (a "1" will always be "1", and a "0" will always be a "0"), it does something really sneaky.

It changes to point it time that the "1" is recognised as a "1", or the "0" is recognised as a "0". And that, our friends, is what is known as jitter. The digital value is correct, but it is off by just a little bit in the time domain."

[Covenant]

Hi Neil,
Are you saying that Tellurium sound good because they introduce nice sounding colouration?
Sorry-I use USB atm so cannot try the new cable.

[Yomanze]

Hi Neil,
Are you saying that Tellurium sound good because they introduce nice sounding colouration?
Sorry-I use USB atm so cannot try the new cable.

Hi Jerry I can't recall a speaker cable that changed the sound as much as the TQ Black, which I did use for a good while and gave a good chance. I find this very interesting from the TQ site:

"The only cable range to have ever be given product of the year by HiFi Plus for EVERY product.
The only cable range ever to be given the maximum 5 Globes by HiFi World for EVERY cable."

...as it isn't often cables make a REAL difference to the sound! I maintain it's subtle differences with neutral cables, but important ones nonetheless.