I recently changed my SB1 setup to go through my BelCanto II DAC. This has one coax and one optical input, and as my Pioneer Elite DV-59Avi universal player uses the coax for Redbook output, I had to go optical. I took the opportunity to trial cables and was surprised at the difference they made.
I started with a Radio Shack level $10 cable, went to an $80 Kimber Toslink, an $85 AQ Optilink 1 and then an AQ $200 Optilink 3. I found very discernible differences. I was mostly looking for detail and used two test cuts that have a lot of detail. I compared the cuts to the CD through the same DAC, using a Kimber Illuminations DV-60 coax cable and to each of the optical cables. The Radio Shack cable had a noticeable drop in detail compared to the CD/coax. The Kimber and Optilink 1 were similar -- a step up but not up to the level of the CD/coax combo. The Optilink 3 was indistinguishable from the CD/coax combo. I also tried the DV-60 with the SB and that was indistinguishable for me from either the Optilink3 or the CD/coax combo. I have to say that using a $200 cable to connect a $250 device took a bit of mental gymnastics for me. But considering it's part of a system with my server and DAC, that made sense. In the end, I'm getting good CD quality playback with all of the advantages of a media server, so spending the extra $120 or so isn't really that big a deal. -- mschlack ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mschlack's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1159 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29353 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
