This is a review and detailed measurements of the Analysis Plus Oval XLR "Digital" cable. It is on kind loan from a member. I had a hard time finding information on this cable as it is not listed by Analysis Plus but there are sellers who do carry it. It costs US 190 for a one meter length of it. The description on those sites raves about 75 ohm matching impedance but AES digital audio is a 110 ohm standard, not 75 ohm. Maybe that refers to the RCA version.
The Analysis Plus Oval cable doesn't look too bad and is not overly stiff:
There is a patent number on the cable which I did not other to look up.
Digital Audio Cable Audio Measurements
I thought I start by using my Audio Precision APx555 in its digital analysis mode. Here, it is able to extract jitter from the digital stream and analyze it as if it is audio:
View attachment 48713
The signal being played is J-test which is at 12 kHz and has a 250 Hz square wave riding along. So any jitter artifacts tend to show at those two frequencies as we see. The signal in red is Analysis Plus Oval. We see that the spikes are higher than the Mogami "analog" XLR cables that I purchased from Audio Precision. So we have a bit of degradation instead of improvement here.
Here is a comparison against a Mogami Microphone cable I use for my analog audio measurements:
View attachment 48714
Once again the Mogami wins even though it is not a "digital" cable.
Of course as noted, none of this matters as far as audibility. Jitter is incredibly low and no way it could cause any audible difference.
Next, let's see what difference the cables make on a DAC, specifically the Topping D90 when using its AES input. First up is the Analysis Plus Oval:
View attachment 48715
Let's now switch to Mogami microphone cable:
View attachment 48716
No difference whatsoever.
Finally let's measure jitter coming out of the DAC in analog domain:
View attachment 48717
Here, the Analysis Plus is a hair better than the Mogami Mic cable. Slight impedance differences, length of cable, etc. can cause these variations. Key is that none of this matters as far as audibility as difference is well below -130 dB and our hearing dynamic range at best is 116 dB. Most audiophiles fail to hear differences that are orders of magnitude worse than these.
Conclusions
Need I say it? Don't waste your money on such "high-end" cables. In short distances we use in home audio, "digital" cables make no difference one way or other. Cables remind me of dog toys. They are made to appeal to their owners in stores to buy them, not what the poor dog sees in them. Your audio gear doesn't get excited over that thick cable, fancy geometry, etc.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Entire living room is now filled with huge boxes of products/speakers to test. My wife is suggesting that I go see a doctor as I must have become sick or something. Such doctors don't come cheap, nor take insurance. So please
donate what you can using
: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I am glad to see Amir helping to straighten things out and clean up the mess of perpetuated myths and urban legends. I myself have had to throw away false conceptions about audio. But with that excess baggage gone, it is nice to see the cold, hard facts do indeed help explain things.
