AES/EBU Connection

Dear all,

I am using a Benchmark Dac1 with a Meridian 500 mk2 transport, connected by an Apogee Wyde-eye dig coax.

Now, that I have the facility to use AES/EBU, can anyone tell me the sonic benefits of this (if any ?!) over digital coax ?

Are the AES/EBU inputs/outputs on my two components good enough to use this type of signal transfer ?

Finally, any suggestions for a cable to try ? (around £100 or less)

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Best Regards

Steve

 

If by "digital coax" you mean an RCA/Phono terminated lead then there is the advantage of having a clearly defined load for the termination (110 Ohm IIRC). If you're talking a BNC terminated cable then that's already sorted. The other advantage of the balanced lead is presumeably it is better shielded.

If it was me I'd get a Wyde Eye balanced lead, which won't cost that much, and find out. Maybe it's just me but I hate phono connections and wish they weren't the standard audio connections they are, and would go for using a 'proper' connection where I could every time. It might not sound better but I'd be happier .

 

Over the short distances involved here there are no benefits to using a balanced connection. You're already using one of the best dig coax. cables you can get (for any price) IMO so I'd stick with that. I've compared using AES/EBU, coax with RCA plgus, coax with BNC plugs and TOSlink optical and there's no clear winner. I'm currently using an optical connection between my transport and DAC.

If you want to try an XLR digi cable then you could always try the Apogee Wyde-eye balanced version which is less £100.

Michael.

 

Martin, you're right about the properly defined impedance (110ohms) for a balanced connection (75ohms for a BNC coax connection) but in practise I've found this to make little or no difference. I have tried two identical coax cables, one with fairly normal (Canare) RCA connectors and one with BNC conectors (also Canare) and I could really tell no difference between them. Yes, I am a cable sceptic but digital cables is one area where I can hear differences

Michael.

 

I did swap between an RCA/phono to a BNC terminated cable on sonic grounds. I had a 'HiFi' digital cable with phono terminations I'd spent £80 on, but took home a BNC terminated lead from work, and this was better to my ears. Essentially tighter/more focused. I subsequently bought a BNC terminated Wyde Eye cable and have been using that ever since. I haven't compared identical cables with the different terminations, which is what I'd really need to have tried of course.

Oh, and I'd expect the balanced Wyde Eye cable to cost much less that £100 (depending on length). My 1m BNC Wyde Eye cost ~£30 direct from Apogee.

 

Always use AES/EBU where possible

 

I'd agree. On both my last two transport/ dac combo's the AES/EBU connection has in both cases sounded noticably cleaner and sharper using AZ MC2 cables in the different formats

 

Lower nosie floor, though some kit, doesn't implement the format correctly

 

S/PDIF is an object lesson in how NOT to design an interface. Non-terminated on RCAs, with a mere 750mV signal strength and a combined return and shield which increases noise.

AES/EBU is the diametrically opposed point, of an example of how to create a digital interface. The signal is differential with a 5V strength, a dedicated gnd/return path and a separate shield. Cable impedance and termination impedance are clearly defined and implemented.

Consequently AES/EBU offers greater immunity to interference, lower jitter and error rates, etc compared to S/PDIF. If you have the choice, it's not a choice; use AES/EBU.

If you want to try it on the cheap, you can get a good quality cable from Deltron. It uses Gotham GAC-2 AES/EBU cable and silver-plated copper pin XLRs (made by deltron, but my experience is that they're as good as the Neutriks). It's available for about £13 from Farnell.

 

Does rob watts use AES

 

Out of interest, any idea what the 'excuse' of the audio industry is as to why this format was chosen? Is it that a BNC or AES/EBU connection would be supposedly too complicated to poor Joe Public to deal with? I can't believe that cost, particularly for BNC, would be an issue. Or was it a supposedly pragmatic decision that it doesn't matter so let's keep it simple and stick to phonos?

 

When using the meridian 500 transport with the Electrocompaniet ECD-1 DAC, I found AES/EBU gave a noticeably cleaner more solid & tangible sound image than RCA.

However, using a DAC64 I couldn't spot diffrences between connection methods, or transports for that matter.

 

Isaac, the problems with SPDIF and why it's such a crap interface are to do with the data format (clock signal combined with data) and less with the physical interface properties. Since AES/EBU shares this data format (with a couple of insignificant differences) it is equally flawed. Whilst AES/EBU is technically superior the differences are unlikely to have big impact in consumer audio equipment.

When I compared a Bullet Plug (RCA) terminated Apogee Wyde-eye digi cable with a balanced Apogee cable (with Neutriks) I actually felt the RCA cable sounded better

Michael.

 

S/PDIF was specified when much less was known/understood about this whole issue...

RW favours optical connections for RF rejection reasons.

 

Michael- Clock combined with data isn't such a silly way of doing things if done properly. USB is an example of this.

 

Fair enough, although it still seems a bit odd. I mean no-one in a research lab would use anything other than at least a BNC terminated lead for signals at these high frequencies I'd have thought.

Probably I'm more anti phono than most due to the flimsey efforts Audiolab used...

 

I tried all flavours of connection between my Tag Mclaren CDT20R-T2L and DAC20. For what it's worth, I settled on the bnc.

 

Changing the psu, negates the optical link imho

 

Isaac, surely if you combine clock and data you're always going to have the high jitter susceptabilty of SPDIF? IEEE1394 (used for various proprietary high rez digital interfaces) gets around the problem by being asynchronous so no need to transmit a clock signal. I thought USB was similar?

Michael.

PS: I wonder if any cable company has already created "audiophile" IEEE1394 cables...that would be worth a laugh!

 

Certainly Audiophile HDMI cables rather laughably exist.