Cables and DACs

[wee tee cee]

Interesting to read this guys, anyone can take a piece of wire and solder 2 plugs on, I don't conform to that practice as I research materials and cable geometry and trial different designs and configurations until I get something that is quite unique and punches well above it's weight, hopefully you agree with that with what you heard!

we all heard something special today with that one element.....it was a cut above!

The most significant single upgrade we tried all day....even with the electronics in play.
the tq interconnects were great but a subtle upgrade....the ultimate was not subtle---it was a revelation!!!!

[NRG]

Interestingly the Eichmann plugs are about as good as it gets with regard to RCAs & SPDIF impedance matching (75 ohm), so it seems like you guys heard it.

That makes no sense as what its plugged into is no where near 75 Ohm! It may be closer to 30~40 Ohms though which would be closer to what its plugged into.

[wee tee cee]

we didn't have any measurement equipment to hand...just trusted our ears.

[NRG]

So how do you know they are 'close to 75 Ohm'?

[Gazjam]

We didn't care, too busy enjoying the music!

Have to agree, dont know what pixie dust David sprinkles on his digi cable, but best Ive heard.
Tony's quads sounded fantastic, no lack of bass.
These things just sing with valves firing up 'em.

Cheers to Tony who was up till 4am that morning making us a cake.
Always good to get together, highly recommended.

Looking forward to the next one.
(Ill bring my cardboard elephant ears....)

Have to say was really surprised how well the Quads rocked.
ACDC sounded fantastic, even played through 320k Spotify

[brian2957]

Yes he did look tired nice cake though . Have to agree with all you guys have said , great way to spend a Saturday.

[Ali Tait]

What struck me was, for the second time in our get-togethers, a cable made a bigger difference than any of the kit.

[Gazjam]

Aye...
Was a similar wtf moment as the tq black cable hooked up to my RS3's.

[Yomanze]

That makes no sense as what its plugged into is no where near 75 Ohm! It may be closer to 30~40 Ohms though which would be closer to what its plugged into.

Some manufacturers like Eichmann and Canare aim to get their RCA plugs as close to 75 Ohms as possible, which is partly due to SPDIF requirements and partly because they'll still work perfectly fine in analogue applications.

Yes, the RCA socket itself is probably going to introduce another impedance mismatch, but you find that the differences between cables rapidly disappear when you are using BNC hardware and proper cable.

IMHO, the audible differences between cables appear to be related to signal reflections affecting clock signals as the data almost always seems to get through perfectly. When people on forums speak about 'bits is bits' and we get measurably bit perfect sound I don't see much discussion of the analogue i.e. clock signals.

[NRG]

There's no 'probably' about it Neil, the RCA socket will introduce a mismatch unless its a Canare matched socket which apparently meets the 75Ohm requirement but you don't see them used on kit very often. Eichmann state their bullet plugs actually have negligible impedance so the cable determines what the impedance is, all fine until its plugged into a socket where it all goes wrong. BNC is much better and will have a high return signal loss given the correct termination, if only manufactures would make more use of it then all this messing about with cables would be a thing of the past!