Cables... advice on what digital cables to use

[struth]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some advice on digital audio cables as there’s quite a lot of conflicting info.

So what is the consensus on Coaxial vs Toslink, specifically QED performance Coax vs either Qed performance optical or Fisual Hollywood Glass optical.

Or would I be better of getting a better Coaxial cable?

Source: Tidal upto 24/48Khz over UPnP or CD
Renderer: Cambridge Audio CXUHD
DAC: Beresford Caiman SEG 30 Inc Dorado

2nd question

Toslink to mini optical adapters, are they a bad idea (for my CCA)?

Thanks

if done well i doubt you will notice much difference. i use all 3 (usb too) and dont notice a lot of difference, if any.

[Barwell1992]

if done well i doubt you will notice much difference. i use all 3 (usb too) and dont notice a lot of difference, if any.

To be honest that’s what I’ve always thought. Just sanity checking really, I know swapping the plastic Toslink cable for glass is an easy win as it seems clear cut that glass is better.

[struth]

To be honest that’s what I’ve always thought. Just sanity checking really, I know swapping the plastic Toslink cable for glass is an easy win as it seems clear cut that glass is better.

yup, i used a fisual glass one for a while. currently not tho as ive misplaced it a well made one of any type is fine. its as much to do with how well the ends are cut n polished

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Yes given the industries wrong choice with using RCA connectors vs BNC the correct choice to terminate digital cables, Toslink
has much appeal. which begs the question is there anything that can be done to improve it. Possibly ensuring no radiated red frequency light
escapes at the junction points. The junction points too might be improved by focussing the light beam - to a degree this is already done,
via the fittings, but I think could be improved upon with encapsulation. Also the receiving and sending conversion I do not think is optimized
for light transfer,rather just borrowed from the coax way of doing digital transfer. Might be a future topic in the DIY section. to discuss.

[Discopants]

Yes given the industries wrong choice with using RCA connectors vs BNC the correct choice to terminate digital cables, Toslink
has much appeal. which begs the question is there anything that can be done to improve it. Possibly ensuring no radiated red frequency light
escapes at the junction points. The junction points too might be improved by focussing the light beam - to a degree this is already done,
via the fittings, but I think could be improved upon with encapsulation. Also the receiving and sending conversion I do not think is optimized
for light transfer,rather just borrowed from the coax way of doing digital transfer. Might be a future topic in the DIY section. to discuss.

Ive got a chord mojo , generally accepted sound quality of inputs in the mojo owning community is USB > coax> optical and this is backed up by a hierarchy of sampling rates supported. So I don’t think a single rule can be applied to all circumstances.


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[JohnNB]

I've been following this interesting thread, but, as usual, got lost in the technical stuff a few posts in!
It did get me thinking about optical vs coax though. I use two digital cables into my Roksan DAC; a Atlas coax from the cdp (£40) and a cheap optical (£5)from the DAB tuner. I decided on this set up after listening and swapping cables around and felt that the coax was - as mentioned in this discussion - darker sounding, so chose it for the cpd, which I listen to most. I didn't even consider buying a quality optical thinking they're all much of a muchness, but after reading the discussion maybe I should. Atlas do a toslink for about £40. Getting one of these would also make all my inter-connects the same model of the same brand. My questions are; is it worth spending the cash on presumably a better quality optical lead, and does it benefit overall SQ of the set up if all interconnects are by the same manufacturer, and the same model?

[Ianmac]

Chris
75 Ohm RCA connectors and sockets have been available in the UK for some years. I bought mine from Canford Audio and my standard BNC crimp worked with them. I think they are offered on Ebay.
I agree 75 Ohm BNC is the best solution if properly engineered.
Most of the issues come from the various manufacturers not adhering to an audio industry standard- none exists- and therefore a mixed bag of RCA sockets appearing for SPDIF inputs.
Making it a field day for the cable vendors !

[Barwell1992]

Just as a bit of an update to this..

I decided to make a punt on the coveted Fisual Hollywood optical cable in 0.5m long, linked it up with my Cambridge Audio CXUHD (using it as UPnP renderer) and Beresford SEG 30 DAC and gave it a run.... If I'm honest wasn't sold by the sound.. in fact my chrome cast audio over a QED performance optical with adapter sounded better and it defiantly sounded better previously with my QED performance coax, so i had a good look and it seems that the poor sound quality is most likely down to a fairly crap Toslink connector on the back on the Cambridge, its just not a good fit and allow's quite a lot of movement, not helped by the stiff nature of the fisual, bit of a shame given the Cambridge its a £700 unit.

So that leads me to the next cable, a blue jeans coax cable, this cable uses Canare RCAP crimped on plugs,these are a true 75 Ohm rca plug mated to a Belden 1694A 75ohm cable. So knowing exactly what i was getting 12 hours and £20 later its running in my system, well so far all i can say is its a great cable for the money all the detail is back that was missing from the Fisual and it feels very well made, its not the best looking cable but seems like it will do exactly what its supposed to, the fisual has been moved over to chrome cast duty and sounds good but to me it sounds no better than my plastic QED cable..

I'll update again once i've got some more hours on the cable.

Blue jeans
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store...udio/index.htm

Connectors
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/pages...canarercap.pdf

cable
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/pages...s/1694tech.htm

Canare RCAP.jpg

[NRG]

The dimensions of an RCA plug mean it can’t meet 75 ohm impedance. Somebody measured the canare plugs on diy audio ages ago and they didn’t meet 75ohms...also if it’s plugged into a standard RCA socket then theres no chance of it being 75ohm. Then there’s the consideration of the pcb traces and termination of the DAC itself, does that meet 75ohm. It’s a folly to chase this requirement.