Self Laundry Upper East Side

The digital cables sound

In my journey in high resolution audio, I never thought of bumping into an old theme that I had ever faced: the quality of digital connections. The stable configuration of
My new DVD-Audio source provided with an optical digital cable connection to external DAC, as had always been the case for the CD player that had only Toslink output.

reading around, and drawing on some knowledge of hi-fi that I will have read years ago, I suggested that switching to SPDIF coaxial cable would have improved, albeit slightly, the sound quality, or better, that would eliminate defects Toslink cable. I

then a ride on ebay, and I run the cables from Belkin. Now, before horrified instantly, Belkin cables are available in two series of which the Silver is the best quality. Despite
Belkin is a manufacturer of hardware that rotates around the home networking, audio-video cables seem made really well for what they cost - at least on ebay, in Italy they cost a lot.
so I ordered a digital coaxial cable and a pair of RCA analog connection between DAC and amp, Monster cable to replace the old, to be used on other equipment.

Incidentally, the analog cables have arrows marked indicating the "direction" of the signal, which is one of their ends must be connected to the source to the amplifier and the other exclusively, and not vice versa. I would expect, intuitively, that the cable's direction was effective for up to digital cable, which has to do with frequencies much higher than audio. It is natural that the problems of transmission increases with increasing signal frequency.
'll discuss these matters.

Just get the coaxial cable, I proceeded to immediately replace the optical, without worrying too much, because I knew it would sound more or less as before, if not better. I also replaced the analog cables.
To my surprise, however, the first notes of the piano by Mari Kodama I realized that the great sound of DVD-Audio was lost and I felt like returning to an old CD.

Well, after an evening of listening tests, and after having switched between optical or coaxial twenty times the result was that the best sound quality I've always obtained with the optical connection.
With CD there is no difference, practically even with regard to internal drives, but when you go up a lot of things change frequently.

The sound of the cable was now darker, the sound image very small micro-dynamics insufficient.
With the optical cable I had become accustomed to even hear the piano playing that moved and changed in some way the sound received by microphones.
The reasons, according to the literature "classic" on the subject, can be two: the jitter and (brace yourselves) the running of the cable.

We will see later the running of the coaxial cable and the additional listening tests.

What Do Freshwater Sunfish Eat

new digital sources: the DVD-Audio

After small mishaps with the Netgear 9100, unable to provide an audio digitally corrected to 88 kHz, I decided to switch to a multi-format player. The Netgear is still an excellent all-purpose video and for the 44 or 96 kHz.

The choice fell on Cambridge Audio DVD99 reader, a multiformat currently on sale, the maximum expression DVD era, as regards the possibilities of reading and decoding. Of course, the compressed digital audio soundtracks does not count as high fidelity, but has much more ability to read all the high-resolution formats, DVD-Audio and SACD.

The market for DVD-Audio is virtually non-existent for years, even lower than that of the SACD, already modest in size, and probably close to total disappearance.
However, having now taken the road of music liquid high-definition DVD-A returns very useful: it is possible to eliminate the multimedia player (such as Netgear) as a digital source and use a DVD-burning software Audio, DVD-Audio only , for all content up to 24 bits and 192 kHz.

Now, the digital input of my DAC does not support more than 108 kHz, but it turns out that almost all the music high-definition liquid reaches the maximum at 96 kHz, even for matters of download size, the DAC's internal DVD99 support the 192 kHz anyway, in case of need.
The first listening tests, however, are much in favor of the external DAC, as a machine of an entirely different caliber than the DVD99.
Surprisingly, the Musical Fidelity A3/24 DAC has been a strong purchase to the time and technology progresses, when it seemed that all lead to the adoption of the Super Audio CD as the standard of the future. The stream of data at a bit of SACD, DSD, would have made unnecessary presoché my external DAC.

The DVD99 is also an SACD player, even if it has no DSD converters, but the tenth DSD input signal to 24 bits and 192 kHz, and then send it to converters.
The solution is by no means contemptible, but for now, the ratings were very disappointed. For now I have only two SACD, of which only an audiophile, but the second I know well the CD layer, the better, so I can make comparisons.

HDracks, from which I purchase music, "liquid", public records high-resolution 24-bit, 96 kHz, except for music arising from SACD, which is published in accordance with the standard 24-bit 88 kHz, frequency multiple of the 2.82 MHz of the SACD.
I purchased a pair of albums ( one and two ) Mari Kodama on Pentatone, some sonatas of Beethoven piano, literally wipe out any similar recording heard on CD.