Question about SPDIF Coaxial Cabling?

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Bubbers214

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2003
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Is there any difference between one of those expensive Monster S/PDIF Coaxial cables and a standard RCA cable. I have my mobo hooked up to my reciever through a standard RCA cable and im getting Dolby Digital output and everything, im just curious if one of these more expensive cables would produce better sound or if it is just a gimmick?
 
im just curious if one of these more expensive cables would produce better sound or if it is just a gimmick?
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Yes, it is not just a gimmick. Digital coax cables have a steady impedance of 75 ohms, they offer much higher bandwidth then analog cables and they have much better shielding.
That does not necessarily mean you have to use Monster cables.
Pick up some Belden 1695a coax cable and a pair of RCA jacks and DIY a cable. ;)
Check out this Head-fi thread for a good deal on raw cable.
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58269
There is even a good deal on a used 2' cable if your not into soldering. :D
 
Originally posted by Seraphim974
the NF7-S can have digital coaxial output??
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No... Actually i just got an A7N8X Deluxe, because my NF7-S crapped out on me and I haven't had the chance to update my profile.
 
Check out this Head-fi thread for a good deal on raw cable. http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/show...;threadid=58269 There is even a good deal on a used 2' cable if your not into solderin
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I need a 30 footer, any idea where I can get a cheap 30 footer, and I am really bad at soldering, I made 18 gauge wires for my Klipsch and it took me almost 2 days to solder those connections. My hands are far too shaky. So i need a pre-made one.
 
Yes, it is not just a gimmick. Digital coax cables have a steady impedance of 75 ohms, they offer much higher bandwidth then analog cables and they have much better shielding.
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I'm curious if a standard coaxial cable that I would use to connect my cable TV can be used as a digital coax cable, if i put some BNC to RCA attachments on the ends. Does a standard coax cable have the same bandwidth, i know it has the same impedence.
 
Originally posted by Bubbers214
I'm curious if a standard coaxial cable that I would use to connect my cable TV can be used as a digital coax cable, if i put some BNC to RCA attachments on the ends. Does a standard coax cable have the same bandwidth, i know it has the same impedence.
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i would *think* so, because as far as i knew, coax was coax, and had no idea that they had any sort of "bandwidth" associated with them. the BNC -> RCA attachments probably won't do the signal quality any favors, but if you have the connectors... hell, i'd go ahead and give it a shot
 
i did the connector thing with the coaxial cable, and it sounds a great deal better then it did with just the plain RCA cable.
 
wellp. i guess that's a good thing. :) i would assume that just because you can hear it means you're getting digital quality sound, and i think that's either a hit or miss thing. in other words i don't think that you can have a digital connection that dosen't sound good, because i would think that either it works or it dosent. but who knows... i'm not the cable guy!

congrats on the success, anyway.
 
It's digital, the signal pretty much goes or it doesn't. Generally any RCA cable will be fine, however some of the really cheap ones can destroy the signal (then again they're not really good RCA cables either).
 
Originally posted by emorphien
It's digital, the signal pretty much goes or it doesn't. Generally any RCA cable will be fine, however some of the really cheap ones can destroy the signal (then again they're not really good RCA cables either).
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lol true, true...
 
in the case of SPDIF, using a better cable will not usually gain you any extra quality. It can however gain you some reliability, especially over long-distance runs. Having the proper matching impedance ensures the maximum power transfer, and having better shielding improves signal to noise. SPDIF has error detection/correction so if it gets a signal, it will sound perfect. Better cable simply reduces your down-time.

Blatant example: For a while, instead of coaxial, I was using some crappy speaker wire (read: wrong impedance, no shielding) on about a 30 foot run from my computer to my digital receiver. As long as I sat still and no appliances turned on or off, it worked just fine, but if the fridge kicked in, or I opened the microwave door, or I built up a little static electricity and discharged it to ground, it would knock the signal to the receiver out for a second or two (caused the receiver to lose synch to the data). So I finally made it to the store and bought some half decent cable and those problems are far reduced. Having better cable would further reduce the likelihood of those errors.

In addition, better impedance matching of the cable to the source and destination will reduce the likelihood of damaging the sound card or receiver.
 
For longer runs, a higher quality cable is a good thing to get, this is true for analog signals and SPDIF. If I were doing a long run on SPDIF I'd probably be more interested in one designed to support the standard fully, so that long range doesn't mean dropped signals. However if you want to try a good RCA cable can do just the same many times.

As far as damaging equipment, that's not so much the issue I doubt, but it makes for good marketing.
 
what about a cable for an Audigy 2 ZS with a miniplug on one end and an rca connector on the other end?
 
Originally posted by dbag.net
what about a cable for an Audigy 2 ZS with a miniplug on one end and an rca connector on the other end?
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My friend had that card, but returned it. He said he couldn't get it to do a simple SPDIF out to his Denon receiver. I don't know if that's true or not.

As far as cable goes he bought the necessary cables and adapters at radio shack.
 
yeah, i'm not sure how it's going to work out. i'm going to use the analog outs anyway, now that i think about it, so i can use it for games.
 
He said he couldn't get it to do a simple SPDIF out to his Denon receiver. I don't know if that's true or not.
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That is kinda, sorta true.
The Audigy cards cannot matrix a DD signal on the fly the same way the Soundstorm Nforce APU does. That means you only get a DD signal when the media is already encoded that way. Any other time you get a simple stereo signal (unless you have a three DAC setup or select Creative "digital" speakers).
Does any of that really mean anything though?
Think about it..... all that lossy digital format does is provide you with an easier way to connect your equipment (It does also make up for a very poor analog solution on the Nforce boards but that is another story)
It does not necessarily give you better sound quality. ;)
 
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