Recommended RCA Coax Digital Interconnect?

[speedy.steve]

The extra Canare 75 ohm RCA plugs I ordered arrived today, so did a Belden 1694a 1.5m Canare 75 ohm RCA plugged cable.

The Belden cable spec is 18swg copper core, Foam polyethylene insulation, shield is aluminium foil-polyester tape-aluminium foil/braid shield.
It does not state OFC in the full spec sheet so I assume it is NOT.

I made up a 1.5m HT100 (teflon foam / OFC solid copper core / OFC copper foil / screen) cable with the Canare 75 ohm RCA plugs.

My test today was - 1.5m HT100 cable on Phono plugs I had been using & the two above.

Let the tube amp warm up ;-)

First up the Belden cable. Hmm interesting, something is better vs the cable I had been using. Timing, speed etc. No change in the tonal balance... bit clinical perhaps or am I just not used to it?

Ok now plug my homebrew - HT100 sat cable.
A subtle difference vs the Belden... not much though. Same great timing / speed, is there a slightly fuller sound - nah, just by ears playing tricks on me? - test between cables on several different tracks / CD's still the same, I fancy there's something different but hard to put my finger on it.
I keep going back to my homebrew - it does after all have MY fairy dust incorporated in it and I can always sell the Belden on Ebay

Go back to the phono plugs cable (incidentally ~25ohm impedance apparently), yuck that sounds bad...

Try the same tests on my Sennheiser HD-650 phones.
Same conclusion.

So I am now sold on the fact that both cable length and proper 75 ohm plugs make a difference.

Once again thanks Tony - Now I get it.

Digi Cables then;
I don't think there is much difference between cables of similar but subtly different spec though. I've yet to be able to try obscenely expensive magic charmed digi cables though - I remain
interested in doing so.
/Steve

 

[RIPit]

I had a very interesting conversation with Jan at Missing Link. She is adamant that cable length makes no difference to sound quality. This is based on their own testing.

 

[hifi addict]

In my experience as a CCTV engineer, reflections are more to do with bad termination. With standard solder connectors such as RCA plugs the wire is soldered to the side of the pin. The signal then hits the end of the wire and bounces back to the source then back again this is seen as shadowing on the screen. Weather the same effect happens with a digital signal I don't know you would have to do some tests

The best and standard connectors are BNC connectors which are terminated properly.

 

[speedy.steve]

In my experience as a CCTV engineer, reflections are more to do with bad termination. With standard solder connectors such as RCA plugs the wire is soldered to the side of the pin. The signal then hits the end of the wire and bounces back to the source then back again this is seen as shadowing on the screen. Weather the same effect happens with a digital signal I don't know you would have to do some tests

The best and standard connectors are BNC connectors which are terminated properly.

That's interesting as I found the longer cable helped with the soldered terminations. Not tried a short cable on Canare crimped plugs - yet...