Argument for expensive digital cables, sounds good but mostly BS?

[invaderzim]

It reads like the standard situation where they take a tiny little fact and stretch it out to make the argument sound really convincing.
https://www.upscaleaudio.com/pages/bits-is-bits

It would be interesting to hear from those in the know about what is right and wrong with the 'article'.

 

[Daverz]

There's also a thread on this article at Computer Audiophile Audiophile Lifestyle:

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/56957-bits-is-bits/#comments

 

[Jim777]

Any specific "facts" you want to discuss? I'd say if a device was really affected by the choice of digital cable, maybe the cable isn't the real problem (given that a cable isn't broken).

 

[SIY]

It's not worth analyzing FUD like that which is targeted at ignorami. As soon as you see "Anyone with a well-set-up, transparent system will find that nearly everything makes a difference," you know you're dealing with scammers. When you see non-ironic quotes from AudioQuest, fraud is confirmed.

Bits IS bits, and either they work or you hear really obvious problems like pops, click, and dropouts.

 

[thomasjast]

I upgraded my SATA cables to OFC rhodium-plated and now my JPEGs load faster and don't have red-eye issues in family photos from the late 1980s.

Because bits.

 

[invaderzim]

"those 1.4 million bits need to be marched into a DAC at exactly 1/44,100th of a second intervals. There are no resends, no pauses—once you hit “play” it’s go-time. "

Is there any checksum on the data sent? Is there an easy way to measure the accuracy of the information on the other side of the connecton?

"If a DAC doesn’t receive any piece of data it’ll simply estimate what it might be, a process called interpolation. "

" This noise can couple with the signal that’s running through the cable and cause distortion (and yes, digital signals can be distorted, as we'll see further down) "

Having played a lot recently with over the air digital TV I wish there was just distortion when the signal had problems. Unless audio is different I would think it would behave like the video where it goes from perfect to not there. A bit like cellphones where back in the old days you could yell over the static if the signal had a problem whereas now the signal is either there or not.

"better clocks make a massive improvement because cheaper clocks can drift by one sample per second or more. "

Is that even noticeable? Wouldn't they have to be drifting back and forth for it to even be an issue?

"Jitter is a clearly measurable and audible distortion, and this is partly how one digital-only source can sound better than another. "

I've seen chart after chart showing how jitter isn't an issue in the products reviewed on here.

 

[simbloke]

Load of old twaddle. Clearly never thought about, for example, how TCP packets are reassembled in the receiving OS. They'll be inventing their own Cat levels for ethernet cable next.

 

[invaderzim]

It's not worth analyzing FUD like that which is targeted at ignorami. As soon as you see "Anyone with a well-set-up, transparent system will find that nearly everything makes a difference," you know you're dealing with scammers. When you see non-ironic quotes from AudioQuest, fraud is confirmed.

Bits IS bits, and either they work or you hear really obvious problems like pops, click, and dropouts.

I agree and while that closing statement did finish it off me I like to know why things are the way they are. Even if it is useless to argue with those that follow the thinking shown there it is nice to know how it really works.

 

[captain paranoia]

Ah, the cable wars...

A cable will transfer wanted and unwanted signals from source to destination. A bad cable can result in the wanted signal being distorted, giving the digital data recovery circuit in the receiver a harder time. A bad cable can couple more electronic noise form source to destination.

BUT a well-designed destination device should be able to cope with these problems; filtering coupled noise, and retiming the received data stream. It's a bit more of a challenge for source-clocked data interfaces, where the clock has to be recovered at the receiver, but, again, a well-designed DAC should cope, by design. Just use a reasonable quality cable; no need to pay through the nose for 'audiophile' cables. Unless your receiving device is poorly designed, and, even then, a fancy cable probably won't fix the problem...

 

[invaderzim]

Load of old twaddle. Clearly never thought about, for example, how TCP packets are reassembled in the receiving OS. They'll be inventing their own Cat levels for ethernet cable next.

I have just enough knowledge at this point on things like TCP packets to think their example of the information just flowing on out the other end was a bit wacky since the information gets processed and assembled on the output side and has to have some form of a buffer. It isn't just falling out the cable onto the floor.

 

[invaderzim]

....Just use a reasonable quality cable; no need to pay through the nose for 'audiophile' cables. Unless your receiving device is poorly designed, and, even then, a fancy cable probably won't fix the problem...

The classic case where they go with the logic of 'junk is bad' so 'really expensive must be even better'

 

[watchnerd]

It reads like the standard situation where they take a tiny little fact and stretch it out to make the argument sound really convincing.
https://www.upscaleaudio.com/pages/bits-is-bits

It would be interesting to hear from those in the know about what is right and wrong with the 'article'.

It's a sales / marketing piece written by a seller.

Do you think they wrote it to drive sales of upgrades? I certainly do....

 

[solderdude]

Cables carrying digital signals can actually increase jitter in the received signal as it is a bandwidth limited system with varying dutycycles.
There is nothing strange about that.
Stating that this has audible consequences is something entirely different.

Any half decent DAC has good jitter reduction/removal and this should not be (is not) a problem.
The recieved 'data' is taken apart and reclocked in a DAC device anyway.
There is no 'direct' connection between a digitally transmitted and received 'signal' and what is sent to the DAC chip.
Lots of processing and reclocking occurs before it is sent to the DAC chip in a way that the DAC chip can do something useful with it.

Some older DAC's may show increased jitter due to the way clock was retrieved in those days.
When it becomes so bad bits topple over other problems occur but not a gradual 'worsening' of sound quality.

Nothing to worry about... continue using cables that simply work and stop worrying about those cables.

 

[Blumlein 88]

"those 1.4 million bits need to be marched into a DAC at exactly 1/44,100th of a second intervals. There are no resends, no pauses—once you hit “play” it’s go-time. "

Is there any checksum on the data sent? Is there an easy way to measure the accuracy of the information on the other side of the connecton?

"If a DAC doesn’t receive any piece of data it’ll simply estimate what it might be, a process called interpolation. "

" This noise can couple with the signal that’s running through the cable and cause distortion (and yes, digital signals can be distorted, as we'll see further down) "

Having played a lot recently with over the air digital TV I wish there was just distortion when the signal had problems. Unless audio is different I would think it would behave like the video where it goes from perfect to not there. A bit like cellphones where back in the old days you could yell over the static if the signal had a problem whereas now the signal is either there or not.

"better clocks make a massive improvement because cheaper clocks can drift by one sample per second or more. "

Is that even noticeable? Wouldn't they have to be drifting back and forth for it to even be an issue?

"Jitter is a clearly measurable and audible distortion, and this is partly how one digital-only source can sound better than another. "

I've seen chart after chart showing how jitter isn't an issue in the products reviewed on here.

Don't know how deep you wish to go. If you know this don't feel insulted. With USB asynch connections the clocking of the USB signal is divorced from the clocking of the DAC. The DAC uses a local clock. The cleanest most accurate way. So telling me how the USB clocking cleanliness is going to fix bad sound is telling me you are lying to me and hoping I don't know better.

The bit about interpolation was true of the Reed_solomon code used for redbook, and I don't happen to know if they use that at the DAC level over USB (I know it isn't part of audio USB and they don't resend packets for audio on USB). Also interpolation of missing data was not going to cause big amounts of IMD the way it works. So again they lied to you. Much less this is a thing over USB. Finally how often does a USB connection get a bit wrong? Practically speaking never. Or maybe like once per week of listening (24/7 listening). That isn't changing the quality of what you are hearing over USB. It is all a bunch of FUD and BS.

Well solderdude said it better than I did.

 

[LTig]

It reads like the standard situation where they take a tiny little fact and stretch it out to make the argument sound really convincing.
https://www.upscaleaudio.com/pages/bits-is-bits

It would be interesting to hear from those in the know about what is right and wrong with the 'article'.

There is some truth in the article but what they forgot to mention is that data are not send to a DAC just as they come in. There is a FIFO and often an error correction as well, and if the FIFO is clocked by the DAC all timing problems just disappear.

 

[captain paranoia]

With USB asynch connections the clocking of the USB signal is divorced from the clocking of the DAC. The DAC uses a local clock. The cleanest most accurate way.

A destination-clocked protocol, where the destination pulls data from the source in FIFO buffer blocks, is indeed the best way of doing it (it's how it's done in a CD player).

BUT not all USB interfaces are destination-clocked ('asynchronous'); the first USB audio interfaces are source-clocked, as is the SPDIF interface.

 

[mansr]

BUT not all USB interfaces are destination-clocked ('asynchronous'); the first USB audio interfaces are source-clocked, as is the SPDIF interface.

Good luck finding such a device today. Maybe some cheap VoIP headset is synchronous, but nothing intended for music playback is.

When a USB audio device is synchronous, the clock is derived from the SOF timing, either 1 kHz (full-speed) or 8 kHz (high-speed). The signal quality at the bit level doesn't really have much of an impact on this process. A synchronous DAC will be just as bad with a fancy cable.

 

[mansr]

Finally how often does a USB connection get a bit wrong? Practically speaking never. Or maybe like once per week of listening (24/7 listening).

The USB 2.0 spec doesn't have a strict limit, but it recommends that implementations achieve a bit error rate of no more than 10^-12. USB3 makes this a requirement. In terms of audio that, works out to roughly one bad bit per week at CD quality or every 30 hours for stereo 192/24. Not a problem.

 

[o2so]

Cables carrying digital signals can actually increase jitter in the received signal as it is a bandwidth limited system with varying dutycycles.
There is nothing strange about that.
Stating that this has audible consequences is something entirely different.

Any half decent DAC has good jitter reduction/removal and this should not be (is not) a problem.
The recieved 'data' is taken apart and reclocked in a DAC device anyway.
There is no 'direct' connection between a digitally transmitted and received 'signal' and what is sent to the DAC chip.
Lots of processing and reclocking occurs before it is sent to the DAC chip in a way that the DAC chip can do something useful with it.

Some older DAC's may show increased jitter due to the way clock was retrieved in those days.
When it becomes so bad bits topple over other problems occur but not a gradual 'worsening' of sound quality.

Nothing to worry about... continue using cables that simply work and stop worrying about those cables.

Could you please explain in layman terms how a DAC removes jitter from the incoming signal?

 

[solderdude]

By reclocking to a fixed (stable) clock that is generated inside the DAC box/circuit.

This can be done in several ways using buffering.
This basically is storing incoming data temporarily and then clocking it out with a stable clock.
Tthe analog output of the DAC is not 'real time'. There are many clock cycles in between) or different ways of synchronising.

Only the very first external DACs had poor jitter reduction.
Today most DAC chips or circuits in DACs have very effective de-jitter circuits in there.
There may still be quite a few DACs out there that have poor jitter reduction though.