digital cables

[brendan]

I am about to upgrade my digital optical cable to a coaxial to use with a 1066 or a1098.Has anyone got any comments on the Catcables range as I would like to support a forum sponsor if possible.Any comments on the different cables in your systems please.

brendan

[martin]

I use Van De Hull, The First as digital interlink, it works perfect.




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[Lex]

I think he was asking about cats.

Brendan, thanks for your thought of supporting the forum too!

As the owner of CATCables, I can tell you about the product. I do have a wide variety of digitals. All use the same quality silver coated 75 ohm coax. Most use the locking barrel connectors, rhodium coated to mate well with the coax.

As an alternative, I can add the silver bullet connectors for 20.00 more to the digital cable of your choice.

Myself, I like them all, but then I am prejudice. A bearcat with the bullet connectors would be a nice cable. If you like the braid look without covering. But if you want a more luxurious look of covering, the Blackcat is sweet in the braids, or the Tigerpaw or Jagwire in the straight wire designs.

I am not sure that any Club Rotel members are using CAT digitals yet. But there are forum members that do, if you want to take your post to Audio Hideout, you may get more response.

Let me know how I can help.

Thanks,
Doug




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[Andrew Pratt]

I am not sure that any Club Rotel members are using CAT digitals yet.

I have one and really like its build quality...its nice to know I won't ever have to upgrade that cable in the future

[Lex]

Oh that's right. Andrew has a Tigerpaw digital.

Andrew is a moderator here, but he has no affiliation with CAT other than being an early customer. I do, I own CAT, and I own half this forum too. Just making sure no one thinks we are trying to pull a fast one on them.

Lex

[brendan]

Thanks for the replies guys.Lex can you tell me the difference between your cables.I have an optical cable and I am wondering if I should upgrade to an coaxail cable.Its very hard to make an in formed choice on the net.

[Lex]

Hey again. Well, between my digitals, I'm not sure there's going to be much difference since they all use the same quality coax. They will be a quality coax, and if you ever wanted or needed to use it for composite video, or added to more, you could use them for component video as well, and definitely see a difference. I hate to tell people what they will see or hear. Instead I prefer to stick more to the facts. Silver is a better conductor than copper. My designs give the ground it's own passively shielded coax just as the conductor has, perhaps an advantage.

Lastly, regarding optical. It's my opinion, and was before I went into the cable business, that digital coax is smoother and more refined sounding than optical. There actually are some valid reasons for this.

Optical goes through more stages of transformation than coax. RTX converters are necessary to transpose the digital pulse signal to light for transmission, then back to pulse for decoding by the D to A converter. The quality of these components can vary, and thus possibly influence the decoding. Digital coax does not deal with all that. It's sent in one format, and decoded in that format.

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[brendan]

I think that I will have another look at those Catcables again.I am sure that I will find one that will work well in my system.

BRENDAN

[HowardGjr]

Brendan,

I don't think you can go wrong with Cat's digital coaxial cable. I've got two of them (I think they are jagwires but I think my cables ended up being a little bit outside the posted product list). They look great, work great and Doug's service is topnotch.

In terms of the Toslink vs Coax, I'd go with coax if you plan to play with the configuration of your system. Coax connectors -- especially Doug's are a reliable robust connection. Toslink's are pretty flimsy and susceptible to data loss if bent at a sharp angle. In theory, the optical connection provides more immunity to noise. Practically, a properly shield coax cable will provide all the noise immunity that you need.

[spacey]

I recently purchased DH Labs Silversonic D-75 cables. They sound great, are very well made, and reasonably priced. I have also used Van den Hul "The First" for digital interconnect with excellent results.

Spacey

[brendan]

Thanks for input.It looks like I will go with Tigerpaw from Catcables.I had looked at Van The Hull digital cables to go with my Van The Hull phono and speaker cables but decided not to as I may change all of my cables when I get a 1066/1098.

Brendan

[Lex]

Brenden, all systems go, as soon as you plug things in the way I suggested. In the meantime, I will be working on that trying to figure out why the order system still won't accept your order from Ireland.

thanks,
Doug