• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Analysis Plus Oval Digital XLR Cable Review

Frank Dernie

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Messages
6,445
Likes
15,780
Location
Oxfordshire
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...
Intelligence yes but not necessarily the correct education.
Plenty of people show no interest in a subject at school and chose not to study it at a higher level yet as adults believe they have sussed it as well as people who have studied it for decades. A bit of research on the internet is all they need even though they don't know enough to tell truth from fake.
 

SegaCD

Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2018
Messages
77
Likes
235
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...

Its really easy to assume because someone is skilled at their job (or has a job that requires a high skill) doesn't always mean that person is necessarily skilled at everything. I'm a good electrical engineer but when it comes to cooking, I question everything I do and it usually comes out wrong. Another example: a one of my friends' siblings is incredibly intelligent and now works for the government in some very high-security locations, but he was incredibly socially awkward & acted quite literally as a child. (I particularly recall a situation... My friend and I were visiting for the holidays and were ice skating. The sibling slipped on the ice and fell on his butt...and started quite literally bawling his eyes out. In a few minutes, he was OK, but it was a strange moment. He was around 20 y/o at the time.)

Someone's profession/skill set doesn't necessarily imply they are intelligent when it comes to audio shopping or even that they have ever questioned the status quo in general. Its one of those big pills that I've always struggled swallowing & certainly one of the reasons why many people don't like/understand ASR even though they are traditionally intelligent.
 

ta240

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 7, 2019
Messages
1,358
Likes
2,655
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...

For some reason intelligence in one area doesn't always mean common sense in another. Some highly successful careers also lean much more towards just requiring the ability to memorize a lot of facts rather than process information.

I know several people that are way smarter than I am but I'm often trying to talk them out of spending money on really stupid things.

Being cynical and jaded helps avoid spending money on some of these things but perhaps the trade off isn't worth it in the end.
 

ta240

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 7, 2019
Messages
1,358
Likes
2,655
Intelligence yes but not necessarily the correct education.
Plenty of people show no interest in a subject at school and chose not to study it at a higher level yet as adults believe they have sussed it as well as people who have studied it for decades. A bit of research on the internet is all they need even though they don't know enough to tell truth from fake.

There is something to the advertising copy that appeals to the educated and those that think they are educated too. They include a bit of stuff that sounds like science and a tiny bit of fact and there is just enough that makes sense for an educated mind to accept it and appreciate that they included that information. That is where terms like skin effect, jitter, capacitance, inductance, and resistance all sound good and are all real things so it makes the descriptions sound scientific and real.
 

mansr

Major Contributor
Joined
Oct 5, 2018
Messages
4,685
Likes
10,700
Location
Hampshire
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...
There seem to be a lot of doctors and lawyers around high-end audio. Doctors deal with the human body, which is still full of mysteries, and many treatments work even though nobody knows exactly why. If audio reproduction is approached with the same mindset, the notion that nothing is too bizarre to try isn't that far-fetched. Lawyers are even worse. In their field of work, there is no such thing as an immutable fact. When the desired "truth" can't be obtained through a convincing (if illogical) argument, it can always be bought. To a non-technical reader, the cable marketing can sound very convincing indeed.
 

Soniclife

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Apr 13, 2017
Messages
4,500
Likes
5,417
Location
UK
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...
There are plenty of doctors who display amazing levels of idiocy of things within medicine, but outside their speciality, so I'm not surprised at all.
 

jmasi07

New Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 16, 2018
Messages
4
Likes
0
Amir,

Excellent review "The emperor has new clothes". High end audio is petrie dish for of snake oil peddlers. There are metal dots, wooden cube etc which you should investigate. LOL
 

Rene

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
90
Likes
87
Excellent review "The emperor has new clothes". High end audio is petrie dish for of snake oil peddlers. There are metal dots said:
How would one go about testing a metal dot or a wooden cube with the AP???
 

ex audiophile

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Messages
635
Likes
805
For some reason intelligence in one area doesn't always mean common sense in another. Some highly successful careers also lean much more towards just requiring the ability to memorize a lot of facts rather than process information.

I know several people that are way smarter than I am but I'm often trying to talk them out of spending money on really stupid things.

Being cynical and jaded helps avoid spending money on some of these things but perhaps the trade off isn't worth it in the end.
The enduring puzzle for me is that you have to have a lot of spare income to buy overpriced cables, so you need a decent job to generate that income. Better paid jobs (doctor, dentist, etc.) tend to require at least some intelligence...

Ain't that the truth. Income/intelligence/judgement don't always go hand in hand. Have you seen Bezos' new girlfriend?
 

garbulky

Major Contributor
Joined
Feb 14, 2018
Messages
1,510
Likes
827
What causes differences in jitter for cables? How come one did better than the other?
 

snake3276120

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2019
Messages
36
Likes
18
Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
What causes differences in jitter for cables? How come one did better than the other?
First of all AP has error.
Jitter is still within the signal (think it as irregular heartbeat) and it is a frequency component. Difference in frequency responses and impedances between cables will affect it
 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,393
Location
Seattle Area
What causes differences in jitter for cables? How come one did better than the other?
The clock is extracted in S/PDIF and AES interfaces at the zero crossing point. If noise is added, or there is attenuation (and possibly reflections due to impedance mismatch), that edge can change from pulse to pulse and cause jitter.

CableJitterEye.png


If you look at the zoomed graph on the right, you can see that the path of zero crossing is varying from one scan compared to another, resulting in error in recovered clock. FYI the j-test signal that I use for testing was invented to detect this type of jitter by causing a lot more transitions and hence, error.

Note that the receiver filters out a lot of the high frequency noise so not all of that degradation gets to the DAC. And better clock recovery can further reduce this type of error/jitter.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,393
Location
Seattle Area
Are XLR balanced analog cables interchangable with AES/EBU digital cables?
In typical short lengths in home hifi, yes. If you were going to run hundreds of feet of it, then I would get them with proper impedance.
 

Rene

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
90
Likes
87
Are XLR balanced analog cables interchangable with AES/EBU digital cables?

I sat on the AES Digital Standards committee for a number of years during the 1980s when the AES transmission standard was being debated.
The thought was that in the transition from analog to digital in the studio, balanced microphone cables could be used to carry digital signals.
For some reason which I do not remember, 110 ohms impedance was chosen for digital signal transmission, while typical mic cables present much lower impedances to high frequency signals, often as low as 45 ohms.

While working on a digital audio router (a device for switching multiple inputs to multiple outputs) at the Grass Valley Group in the 90s, we measured the signal carrying capability of balanced vs. coaxial digital cables. Good balanced digital cable - Belden 1800B - could carry a digital audio signal reliably over 125 meters while 75 ohm coax -Belden 1694A - was good for 1000 meters. This in spite of the fact that balanced signal amplitude was transmitted at 4-5 times that of the coax output.
 

AudioSceptic

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 31, 2019
Messages
2,691
Likes
2,534
Location
Northampton, UK
I sat on the AES Digital Standards committee for a number of years during the 1980s when the AES transmission standard was being debated.
The thought was that in the transition from analog to digital in the studio, balanced microphone cables could be used to carry digital signals.
For some reason which I do not remember, 110 ohms impedance was chosen for digital signal transmission, while typical mic cables present much lower impedances to high frequency signals, often as low as 45 ohms.

While working on a digital audio router (a device for switching multiple inputs to multiple outputs) at the Grass Valley Group in the 90s, we measured the signal carrying capability of balanced vs. coaxial digital cables. Good balanced digital cable - Belden 1800B - could carry a digital audio signal reliably over 125 meters while 75 ohm coax -Belden 1694A - was good for 1000 meters. This in spite of the fact that balanced signal amplitude was transmitted at 4-5 times that of the coax output.
I was expecting a small difference, but this is 8x the distance. Is there a simple explanation for this that I might understand?
 

Rene

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
90
Likes
87
I was expecting a small difference, but this is 8x the distance. Is there a simple explanation for this that I might understand?

I, also, was not expecting such a difference. By way of explanation, I can only conclude that Belden 1800B cable was not as uniform in construction as the coax, which can be made to very close tolerances and was so for digital TV signals. Imperfect twists can turn some diff-mode signal into common-mode. Ethernet CAT cable has very careful construction, and you are advised not to torture it during installation.

I can note that whereas the twisted pair has 3X the attenuation of the coax (by spec), it also has 5X the DCR. It's conductors are 24ga stranded while the coax is 18ga solid.

A better balanced cable is the Canare DA206 which has larger conductors and better internal construction.

http://www.canare.com/ProductItemDisplay.aspx?productItemID=66
https://catalog.belden.com/index.cfm?event=pd&p=PF_1694A
https://catalog.belden.com/index.cfm?event=pd&p=PF_1800B
 

confucius_zero

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Nov 22, 2018
Messages
541
Likes
345
mogami is still a "competent" brand of cables compared to cheaper brands. I'm curious to know if something like amazon basics are equally as good.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,393
Location
Seattle Area
mogami is still a "competent" brand of cables compared to cheaper brands. I'm curious to know if something like amazon basics are equally as good.
My Mogami cables are all XLR and I don't think Amazon makes any XLR cables under their own brand.
 

confucius_zero

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Nov 22, 2018
Messages
541
Likes
345
Amazon makes any XLR cables under their own brand
how about monoprice? the point is to compare with a barrel scrapping hyperbudget product.
 
Top Bottom