Description
Vivanco of Germany, SHQ is their high end range. Superb quality digital coaxial SPDIF cable 99.999% Silver Plated Oxygen Free Copper (SPOFC) conductors and braid screen with additional 100% coverage aluminised mylar film.Use to connect your CD player, streamer, or Blu-Ray player to DAC. SPDIF signals operate at very high frequencies - much higher than audio frequencies. These signals flow along the edges of the conductors, which is why most high-end SPDIF cables are silver-plated, such as the QED Reference, Signature and the Nordost cables I also sell. (Silver is more conductive than copper and its oxides are also conductive so older cables conduct just as well as new cables – the opposite of copper cables). This is a bargain priced high-quality SPDIF RCA to RCA cable. It comfortably exceeds the quality of QED Performance (which I also sell but is just copper) but at a similar price!Silver Plated Oxygen Free CopperPE dielectric to reduce dielectric constantSilver Plated Oxygen Free Copper braid and mylar foil shields for ultimate noise ejection and lowest shield impedance.The cable is factory terminated.BackgroundQ: Why do digital cables make a difference – isnt digital perfect sound forever?A: Because years ago, the designers of the digital audio interfaces decided that the audio signals should be sent imperfectly in real-time, rather than perfectly but late!Our day-to-day experiences of sending digital signals are that they arrive perfectly, so what is different about audio? I dont get errors when I save my Word document to my hard drive or send an email to my cousin in the US; how is it so hard to send a signal 1m between two hi-fi components?The critical difference between Hi-Fi and digital documents being sent is that the audio signals are sent IN REAL TIME WITH NO BUFFERING OR ERROR CORRECTIONIn the case of a document sent across the word or to the printer, the data is transmitted in packets and assembled by the receiving machine; in the event of an error, there is time to ask for the signal to be re-sent it, is error corrected, so the result is 100% perfect. This all takes time. The audio signal has no time for any of this. It is sent as a continuous stream (Hence the phrase Streamer) in real-time, so there is no time to process it. If there are errors, then they affect the sound. Why In real-time? - this was decided years ago in the audio industry to allow video and sound to be synchronised - otherwise, lip-sync issues will be caused when playing a DVD or watching TV.The SPDIF interface is applied not only for CD players but also for DVD, Blu-Ray, Streamers etc., not just audio. How do better cables help?JitterThe phrase digital cables is a misnomer. All cables are lengths of wire or glass fibre, through which ANALOGUE voltages or pulses of light are sent. In the case of a wire, the analogue signal is a so-called square wave representing the 1s and 0s of the digital signal. In theory, this should be perfect; however, in practice, this square wave is rarely square - instead, it has rounded edges. The rounder they are, the more timing errors are introduced, called jitter. (How does the receiving machine know where the transition from 1 to 0 is if the edge of the wave is not a sharp vertical transition but a curve or angled line?) ReflectionsIn addition, as the signal hits the end of the cable, it is partially reflected, overlaying an out-of-phase rounded square wave on top of the original signal. This again contributes to errors. Longer cables reduce this issue; short cables are not a good idea. InterferenceFinally, Radio Frequency interference and Electromagnetic Interference can also introduce errors in the signal and affect the receiving equipment. This emphasises the need for good shielding; in some cases, using Ferrite beads can help with some special equipment. (They can also hinder if incorrectly specified). The better the cable, the squarer the wave, the less reflection, and the less spurious signals from interference. Unfortunately, that means better (usually more expensive) cables produce better digital sound. Blame the people who decided on the digital interface decades ago for not separating audio-only from the need to send audio with moving pictures.
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