Digital Coaxial vs. RCA?

[BMXTRIX]

He may never have tried it - but I just did. It works really well. I was surprised and really - heck if I could tell the difference between the $250 Straight Wire and the hanger my dress shirt got returned to me on from the cleaners.

Bob's House of Dry Cleaning and Digital Audio Interconnects.

I put the Straight Wire back on until I can make a custom cable... It was a pain to get the hanger back into shape for my shirt. Some people take this all way to serious and are far to willing to waste their money.

 

[mtrycrafts]

No...there is no implication that it wouldn't work.....it's just that you and a couple of others LOVE to throw that in the argument all the time but I'd bet a bag of donuts you've never tried it and the reality is...you'd never use one.

Yes, I throw that in, just like I throw in psychics, alien abductions, holistic medicines and a whole lot of other voodoo practices out there in consumer-land.

You are right, I haven't tried it, I will never try it most likely. So what?
That has no impact on the fact that a coat hanger works or not. It works, so one doesn't have to go to extremes to transfer digital signals in home audio. IT is not a big deal to do it properly, even a coat hanger works.

 

[mtrycrafts]

He may never have tried it - but I just did. It works really well. I was surprised and really - heck if I could tell the difference between the $250 Straight Wire and the hanger my dress shirt got returned to me on from the cleaners.

Bob's House of Dry Cleaning and Digital Audio Interconnects.

I put the Straight Wire back on until I can make a custom cable... It was a pain to get the hanger back into shape for my shirt. Some people take this all way to serious and are far to willing to waste their money.

Did you really try it? How did you connect it to the outlets? Does it fit or you soldered it to an RCA plug?

 

[mtrycrafts]

Just breezing over some posts I've read. Lot's of good information. It should be stressed though, with digital its not a situation where you get it or you don't. Isn't a digital signal which ideally looks to cut straight up instantaneously from 0 to 1 actually doesn't? Furthermore, isn't this signal actually a combination of different harmonics, which imply different frequencies?

No, there are no harmonics. Yes, it is supposed to be straight up but it doesn't matter. It is about timing between pulses and the width, I believe, not that it goes up or not. A good digital handbook will explain it.



Therefore, certain frequencies, based on the construction of the cable, could lose a lot of integrity over the length of the cable.

Not at these frequencies and if it is a 75 ohm cable, it works, period. But, in home applications where the cable is so short, it doesn't matter much


Therefore its not like you will result in all 0.9s and 0s instead of 1s and zeroes. You may actually get a 1 where there is supposed to be a zero, or vice versa.

Nope, not the case.

Furthermore, I have read someone say that coat hangers could be used if you could block unwanted outside emissions. Well if you have too much distance between your signal line and your return line, in other words you just hold the 2 coat hangers apart so they don't touch, you end up with parasitic inductance. Which, especially for high frequencies, results in impedance and therefore signal degredation.

Could be wrong who knows....

We know. Coat hangers work for short distances of home audio. It is just not practical.

 

[markw]

True, I never did try the coathanger thing.

Did you really try it? How did you connect it to the outlets? Does it fit or you soldered it to an RCA plug?

but, I did try a skanky, old, thin, stiff, yellowed 6' RCA audio cable that I had hanging around from the early 60's. ...and THAT worked fine for digital audio.

...if it was any stiffer I think it would have made a good coathanger.

...but I never tried that either.

 

[3beanlimit]

Yes, I throw that in, just like I throw in psychics, alien abductions, holistic medicines and a whole lot of other voodoo practices out there in consumer-land.

You are right, I haven't tried it, I will never try it most likely. So what?
That has no impact on the fact that a coat hanger works or not. It works, so one doesn't have to go to extremes to transfer digital signals in home audio. IT is not a big deal to do it properly, even a coat hanger works.

So what? LOL.....send me my bag of donuts.

 

[MDS]

There are no intermediate values in digital audio or any transmission of binary data for that matter. If there is a problem that causes a bit to mangled it will cause a 0 to be interpreted as a 1 or vice-versa.

As mtrycrafts has said, for the short distances and low bitrates of digital audio, problems are few and far between and just about any cable will get the job done. [Though you should still buy decent quality 75 Ohm cables to be in spec and ensure that there are no problems.].