How can digital interconnect cables from a CD transport to an outboard DAC possibly affect the sound?
With digital cables, there are three things that are paramount: 1. proper impedance, proper cable termination, and wide bandwidth. It may be that a particular cable more nearly matches a systems actual impedance. 2. proper termination includes, but is not limited to, the actual electrical termination inside the components, as well as the connector on the end of the cable. If the connector is NOT a perfect 75 ohm, 110 ohm, or whatever, it will cause minor reflections in the cable, which makes JITTER raise it’s ugly head again. 3. bandwidth, it is an issue because both the AES/EBU and the SP/DIF interface formats were designed before Sony/Phillips knew all there was to know about digital problems, and they require PERFECT unlimited bandwidth cables in order for the transmission systems to be free of jitter. The more limited the bandwidth, the more jitter. Digital transmission systems are affected by jitter, where the transition from a 1 to a 0 is modulated with respect to time. There are
