Apogee Wyde-Eye digital cable

I just did a comparison of an Apogee Wyde-Eye (with Bullets, terminated by me) 75ohm RCA SPDIF vs. LAT DI-20MkII balanced AES/EBU 110ohm XLR and.... the Apogee came out on top!

The Apogee cable was noticably cleaner in every respect with less grain at the top and slightly more bass extension.

Price of the Apogee cable not known (I got 2.5m from a dealer in Portugal who has 200m of cable and hasn't decided what to charge me yet ), but including the 2 Bullet Plugs (£12 a pair) I doubt the total cost would come to more than £40.

Price of the LAT...£120

I did the tests between my transport and DAC64 which meant I had to use a BNC to RCA adapter which wouldn't have helped the Apogee, along with the fact that it's a single ended cable and not balanced which is theoretically superior so that makes the result for the Apogee Wyde-Eye even more surprising. A true audiophile bargain IMO

Michael.

 

A couple more friends tried, and bought it, everyone found them far more natural sounding then the alternatives...

I even replaced the WBT RCA terminated Deltecs between pre and powers with Apogees terminated with Neutrik XLR, exact same sound, except for apparent less noise, and less than one fourth of the price... :MILD:

 

Glad you like it Lowrider. I always like to hear of a bargain!

 

Yea 40 quid for some wire, brillient!

 

I understood that AES/EBU was 600 Ohm balanced. Is that not the case anymore? Or is there a 110 Ohm convention nowadays?

Paul

 

Nope, for digital audio AES/EBU balanced has always been 110ohm.

I believe that analogue balanced cables are 600ohm but, to quote again from "An Introduction to Digital Audio" by John Watkinson:

"The distances likely to be found within a studio complex are short compared to audio electrical wavelengths and as a result at audio freuquency the impedance of cable is high and the 600ohm figure is that of the source and termination. Such a cable has a different impedance at the frequencies used for digital audio, around 110ohms."

Michael.

 

Good stuff here, http://www.ebu.ch/tech_info/tech_info_daifug.pdf?display=EN

I get the distinct impression that alot of this happens by accident.... FWIW I think that 75 Ohm single ended probably offers equal or better performance in domestic lengths. Ideally with 75 Ohm BNC connectors.

Paul

 

It's a subject that often creates heated debate but you're right. Between using balance 110ohm XLR, 75 ohm RCA or 75 ohm BNC connections there is no clear winner. At least 75ohm BNC and 110ohm XLR have properly impedance matched connectors. RCA connectors can never really create a proper 75ohm connection allthough you'd be surprised what Eichmann Bullet Plugs can do (and there is yet another contentious debate ).

Michael.

 

I've just wrote a lenghtly reply bollox, lost it, Paul, all things being equal a 'true balanced' AES/EBU will out preform an SPDIF even with matching 75 ohm sockets and cables and plugs, a simple test is straight forward on a lot of dac, that use dual outputs that can drive at the same time, and again all things being equal a true balanced input, will continue in the same vein.
The above is based not on internet trawling or book worming but hard facts determined by 'real comparisions'
The AES is mainly used in commerical and studio appilcations were lomg runs of cables are in close proxsimity to each other and need high rejection capabilities to avoid cross talk.
Most people natural assume that you only need to use them, in long runs
I can freely demonstrate this, If I use 2 cables of the same construction, one terminated with 75 ohm sockets and plugs/cable the other with 110 Ohm AES use them between the same trans/dac and swop inputs on the remote, you can hear a noticable audiable difference, it has been demonstrated on more than the odd occation.
The SPIDF, is the most commonly used digital transmission signal line there is, a decent set up would as paul says use genuine 75 ohm sockets and connectors, and have a screened 75 ohm cable, in theroy a top sound, keep the 'leading edge' square wave form distortion (jitter) tightly under control
The word bit sync signal is also carried inside the main data stream along the Single ended cable, albeit together.
The AES/EBU has a seperate pin which carries the 'word' or sync bits, that the clock extracts to marry in the clock if you like
You could add to this Glass optic AT&T and the I2S which i feel is possibly ther best method of them all, no need for dual 96KHZ lines, just one neat tidy package sounds damn good too
Interestly some of the top sounding/selling Digital cables arn't 75 or 110 ohn in impedence either You go figure WM

 

Tone - a lot of it depends on the implementations of the balanced output and receiver circuits aswell. However, all other things being equal, 110ohm balance probably has the edge.

I2S - it's not used much but I'd agree with you. Doesn't that have a separate wire for the clock signal, thereby getting rid of one of the primary drawbacks of the SPDIF/ AES/EBU interface?

Interestingly, nearly all (recent) Philips transports have an I2S output on them. The interface was designed to allow transports to communicate with internal DAC circuits - then some clever people decided to use it externally

Michael.

 

All you ever needed to know.....and more!!!

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html

Now can someone explain to me why one should sound better than the other

 

Mike, The true balanced has just slight more than a edge but like I said the most complete package I've heard so far is the Teac d70/P70 by a long way (for jitter elimination)
The I2S is a 7 pin mini din, that does indeed, have it's own discrete clock sync data tranmission lines, along with the main data streams, clever stuff.
However the mighty Dax discrete, uses an AT&T glass optic array, and one for the clock link to, (Wadia Have done this for a good 6 or 7 years now), blimely even I use the spare AT&T for some thing extra along those lines.
This is were the one box guys win, less kleads boxes and cables, but can you handle the preformance drop off, a lot can then some can't WM

 

I think you are missing the point, that cheap pro wire beats expensive audiophile stuff, regardless of terminations...

 

Antonio, old chap AT&T is £50 for 3m We use the apogee wide eye as our low end reference cable, so we know how it sound with stock bullets/silver bullets and gold bullets/wbts'/solderless and Furutec plugs, and it's not bad. WM

 

Glass optic array, must work wonders linking my FMJ DV27 to the Krell, or Michael's DAC64...

And your low end must be pretty deep...

 

Antonio, No, our low end stuff we like to keep realistic and affordable to all, Our mid point selection is more than capable of shaking up the competition, as for the others well, you'll just have to listen one day

 

Sure, then again, better not, after all, I have AV... :beer:

 

Antonio and Michael,

It would be quite interesting for you two to compare your respective Agoee's in each other's systems, just to see how close (or far away) in (subjective ) performances terms the Bullet terminations are to the XLR balanced.

 

Henry - Antonio isn't using a balanced Apogee, he's using an RCA terminated cable with Audioquest connectors I believe.

Would still be a good test for the Bullets though

Michael.

 

Michael, I've just re-read the post and looks like you're right, I misread it. He was refering to analog i/c's (but using the same Aogee wire as you guys use for the digital )...