Silver Digital Magic

[Adrian Smith]

Sithlord, out of curiosity what did the power boss cost you?
Re your collection of cables, I now have a dedicated 4 door cupboard for cables and connectors as well as a rack in the garage for the approx 15 different types of cable on reels, such as cat5, 10 pair, mains, speaker etc, the amount of $$$ I must have laying around is quite scary.


Adrian

[Sithlord10]

The Power Boss cost me $340. It retails for over $400 but they stuffed up my order (Forgot to send it) so they compensated me with a good price. It's very industrial and built like a tank. I've got the 1098, dvd player,tv and rotel 1050 amp plugged into it. I couldn't plug the sub amp into it as it's 2100watts on it's own and the Power Boss limit is 2400watts. I prefer to isolate the sub amp anyway which is recommended. Hope this helps

[ajpoe]

Geoff, I emailed Doug and he did say it would be a week or two to get cables because he was making a supply for you and some other people. He suggested the Silver Kingcats for between the processor and amp and quoted me a price for 5 four meter cables. I told him I was in no hurry. I think I'm going to worry about getting a processor first and then enter the realm of better cabling once I get all the hardware I want.

ajpoe

[chrispy35]

ajpoe,

Was this the article? It's a good read for everyone on a wide range of topics.

http://home.austin.rr.com/tnulla/dunlavy6.htm

[Aussie Geoff]

Thanks for the link and here's some more

chrispy35,

A great series of postings by John Dunlavy (a classic in the industry). Everyone should read them. Hence my very first posting about the Silver Coaxes causing me to question my understanding of the laws of physics...

Thanks for reminding us all of them

Here's another good site http://sound.westhost.com/cables-p3.htm#interconnects The article I've linked to says "All well designed interconnects will sound the same." But there is a nice index of similar articles for speaker cable, power cords etc... Very convincing when you read it... I even convinced myself for the first couple of years I had a HT system - and then my ears told me a different story (despite the theory) and I started down the slippery slope that ended up with the Silver Coax's...

PS - these threads can get WAY out of hand - have a look at THIS POST in rec.audio.high-end that raised sub-particle physics and quantum mechanics as an possible explanation for cable sounds and resulted in a thread that covers in its 371 posts almost evey concievable opinion from "There are no audible differences - you are fooling yourself" to "Every cable sounds different" ...

Geoff

[Lex]

ajpoe, just so people don't get the wrong idea here. All orders placed will not take 1-2 weeks to ship currently. If you order a digital cable, I will try my best to ship within 3 days. That allows 1 day for building, and 2 for conditioning.

The Kingcats are for a fact, the most time consuming cables I build. As such, large orders for them are generally take some time and I will always quote a generous time window to complete. The other thing is, they use about 5 ingredients. Keeping stock is not always "easy". Occasionally there are blips in the supply chain. for example, I currently am waiting on some teflon tubing to finish Geoff's Kingcats. It should be here in the next 2 days.

Each Kingcat cable can have up to 1.5 to 2 hours invested in it! That's labor intensive. It's a nightmare I created for myself, lol. But in the end, what you get is a cable that is of the absolute best quality possible for analog. I couldn't find premade cable anywhere like this, so I basically created it myself, designing the geometry, optimizing everything. Additionally, most Kingcats are coming withe the same silver post connector people are getting on the Silver Magic Digital Cable.

Oh, tomorrow, 3 orders ship out, 2 digitals and a pair of Kingcats, all for members here. So, product is going out the door gents. :yesnod:


Lastly ajpoe, we will have to look at what was quoted to you. I don't recall quoting 4 meter Kingcats. I'm not even sure I would make those at that length, it becomes quite laborous, even if possible, I believe what I quoted you was something of shorter length, just so there is no confusion, we will have to reevaluate that.

Lex

[ajpoe]

Lex, I'm sorry I had a brain fart. Not sure why I typed four in there... I think my brain was thinking four feet (and I typed meter)... lol. Also, I wasn't trying to imply that it is a norm for the delay, only because you had such a large amount of orders on hand currently (that's a good thing!). This was clearly stated in our emails... I must add that the correspondence in quoting and offering advise was nothing short of excellent and professional which is often hard to find these days. I am looking forward to taking various steps to better my setup and I'm sure the Kingcats will work their way into the pictures at some point down the road. One of the cool things I've noticed in this thread is that whenever someone brings up a controversial topic of better sound when using certain cables or whatever, there is always an argument on both sides. To date, there has no been one person claiming that these cables do not make a difference which speaks a lot in itself. :T

ajpoe

[Shockabuku]

Oh, tomorrow, 3 orders ship out, 2 digitals and a pair of Kingcats, all for members here. So, product is going out the door gents. :yesnod:

Lex

Ooh, I wonder if my digital cable is one of them :T

[Kemp]

I have also now ordered a silver digital and can't wait to receive it. I ordered it solely based on this thread. This is my first high-end interconnect that I buy and is very excited to test it. I can also add that my experience so far with Doug has been a very positive one.

Marius

[chrispy35]

I think what this thread is begging for at this point is for someone to do some testing that will reduce/eliminate the chance of a placebo effect.

Would it be possible for one of the expectant owners to put some effort into this and report the results?

Bad examples:
- hook up cable yourself, listen and judge based on memory.
- hook up cable, ask wife (or hubby) if they 'notice anything different'.

Good example:
- get a friend to randomly select/install the new or old cable on you and try to guess which is which. Make sure you are completely unaware of cable being used (leave the room during the swap). Repeat 20 times.

Any takers?

[nyny]

chrispy35, I ordered the silver coax from Lex as well. I will ask my gf to assist me in performing a blind test once I receive it. I will post my finding once I test it.

I am extremely curious to find out whether such a noticeable difference can be heard from the silver coax.

[pciav]

...I am extremely curious to find out whether such a noticeable difference can be heard from the silver coax.

So am I...So am I. NYNY, I am in College Point, Queens, if you want or need some help.

Phil

[ajpoe]

I carried out a blind test on my wife. My wife has no interest in HT and will call it as she sees or hears it! I put on the Eagles 'Hell freezes over' DVD and let her listen for a few minutes. I then went and swapped in the new silver coax cable and played the same piece again. I then as asked her what sounded better (I didn't tell her what I did, she would kill me if I told her I spent $150 on a cable! :x ) She stated that the sound was much clear and she could here the voices a lot better. We then watched a movie and found that we could have the volume four or five notches lower while still maintaining the clarity of the dialogue.

Here is at least one test but it would be interesting to see some more like this.

ajpoe

[DrJRapp]

Does anyone use Optical for the digital connection b/w their pre-amp and their dvd player?

I've used optical or "toslink" cable as it is known for my DVD player to my RSP 1066. When I first got my 1066 it has the now famous "popping" problem which I was able to largely reduce by going optical rather than coax.

I have been tempted to order a silver digital coax from Doug as soon as my budget allows to see what happens now.

[chrispy35]

Sorry whmacs and ajpoe, I really have a hard time calling that a blind test. Having your wife listen to a song, changing something (she now knows something has been changed) and asking for her opinion on a second listen is definitely not a blind test.

Have her identify, with reasonable accuracy, which cable is in use after many random selections/trials is a little more defensible from a testing perspective.

[nyny]

Hey Phil (pciav), it's good to hear from a fellow New Yorker. I am in Battery Park City, few blocks away from WTC. I will let you know if I needed help to perform the test.

Thanks,
Tony

[Kemp]

Blind Test

I will do the suggested blind test. I will test it myself with a buddy changing the cables and then I will let him try and identify the two cables. After that I will take it to another buddy's home that has a real budget system and let him do the test aswell. This is only when I receive the cable which will ship today. :dudes:


Marius
;b>

[Ross Smith]

I finally recieved my Silver Coax boy what a nice looking cable, great workmanship and finish. Man this cable has really cleaned up my DVD music disc's, the voices sound human again.The extra detail I hear is amazing everything is so much clearer. I can hear little nuances and detail in the music that weren't there before, like when the gutarist plucks the strings you can hear his hand slide up the frets and the mike techniques you can hear the singer take breaths. I was listening to the "George Harrison Memorial Concert" it's a fantastic DVD and well recorded.Using D/D and DTS the music is less electronic or artificial sounding it is more like listening to a good CD.
Great job Lex this cable has transformed my whole system more than any other upgrade I have done.

[theMaximus]

Correct me if I'm wrong

I can see that a lot of people are raving about silver digital interconnect and some even claim that CD sounds better with this miracle digital interconnect than using the analog output from your CD/DVD player. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't DAC more likely to dictate the sound from your CD player than interconnect? As I understand it, by using digital connection from your CD player to your receiver/preamp, you are bypassing the DAC in your CD player and using the DAC in your receiver/preamp, which may or may not be better than the DAC in your CD player. I always thought that good interconnects can prevent your hifi equipment from sounding worse than it is but can never take the sound quality beyond your component's limit. If your CD player's DAC is better than that of your receiver/preamp, which they normally are for high quality CD players, I doubt if you can get better sound by using a digital connection rather than analog. I guess there is no harm in trying both connections to see what you like better since sound quality is very subjective. It is definitely worth a try. However, I for one tried Audio Magic's silver digital coax and found the analog output from my Cambridge Audio Azur 540C CD player sounded better than using the built in DAC of my Rotel RSX-1056 (which I'm using as preamp for RB-1070 stereo amp) via digital coax. I guess there is a chance that Cat Cable's silver cable is far superior than my Audio Magic's.

[aarsoe]

Maximus

I agree.

Well think it is time to add my 2 cents worth of oppinion of the silver coax.
I have had the cable for quite some time now and feel I can make an objective evaluation.

My equipment is the Sony DVP-7000 as cd transport (only connected as transport) and the Assemblage DAC 3.0 signature version upgraded with K class D/A converters.
The cable I used before the silver coax was a Wireworld Silver starlight.

So soundwise, clean analytical sound with good coherence of all aspects, maybe a little laid back in the midrange. Not in any way a cold cable, but with a little emphasis on the high end and a somewhat reduced level of the very deepest bass notes.
In terms of the actual physical quality of the cable, the finish is very nice, maybe a little stiff and you need to have a bit more space behind your gear than normal due to the cable layout. But I can live with that.

So conclusion, did I change the Wireworld to the Silver Coax? No, I preffered the WireWorld. However you have to remember that the wireworld is a USD 1000 cable and the differences are very small.
In other words, I think the Silver Coax is a much better bargain, but ultimately I have the other cable, so I am using that now.
My silver coax have now taken place as connection between my DVD player and my processor.

If I have not had my WireWorld cable, I would have been perfectly happy with Doug's cable. I can only recommend the cable for everybody that is not willing to spend the amount I did on my digital cable..

[aud19]

Well I'd say getting 90(?) something percent of the performance for almost 10% the cost is pretty darn good. 8O

Jason

[aarsoe]

Jason

Yup - my point exactly.

Why is it that the last couple of % is what is REALLY expensive!??????+ :W

[aud19]

Not to take away from your findings either but.. It'd be pretty hard for me to convince my brain that my $1000 cable wasn't better damnit!! :evil:

:rofl: Even if it wasn't ...? :E

You are only human and I wouldn't blame ya one bit if that's the case. Though likely it wasn't I'd sure hope that cable would outperform Doug's at the price and believe more likely than not that it does.

Jason

[aarsoe]

Jason

What can I say, was on a business trip in Norway had a couple of hours before going to the airport and went to a hifi shop with a hangover...
Was even told I could get 25% reduction on the VAT at the airport - but no... :banghead:

Lesson to be learned - dont go shopping after a night of serious "business negotiation"!

[Aussie Geoff]

Edit it's all inter-connected...

Aarsoe,

In Buddism and some other religions they believe that all things happen for a purpose.

So let me see now...

You went on a business trip, drunk too much, got a hangover, walked into a hi fi shop, got conned by a salesman, brought a world class digital cable (which I'm sure the Wireworld is - it has a great rep), all so we could get an objective assessment of the Silver Coax...

I'm sure you feel better about this now.....

Thank you on behalf of us all. arty:

PS - Enjoy that next business trip.. :boozer:

Geoff

[nyny]

I finally tested the silver coax. Here is how I tested it and my finding.

Equipments: Denon 2900; RSP-1068; RMB-1075; BMW 705 (fronts and surrounds); B&W HTM7 (center); Velodyne SPL-1200II.

Materials: Gipsy Kings (roots); Vivaldi La Stravaganza (Rachel Podger); Bebo & Cigala (Lagrimas Negras); Chopin 19 Nocturnes (Arthur Rubinstein); LOTR; and The bourne Identity.

I conducted a blind test where my gf randomly switched between my old Acoustic Research optical cable and the silver coaxe. Leaving all other settings equal, I listened to CDs in stereo mode (with sub) and movies in DTS and DD modes. I was unable to distiguish the sonic outputs from the two cables. :huh:

Trying to hear a difference, I carried out additional non-blind test where I switch the cables personally. Even when I try to hear a difference, I was unable to. In fact, for certain passages, it sounded like the optical cable is playing a very tiny bit louder and clearer than the silver coaxe (might be my imagination, who knows). But overall, I would say that these two cables sounded the same to me.

I was debating whether to return the silver coaxe, but decided to keep it since I needed an extra cable to hook up my HD box to the 1068. For those who are interested in the cable, you should really conduct your own blind test since this is just one man's (me) opinion. Hope my two cents is helpful.

Kemp>>> did you get a chance to test it yet? Would love to hear what you and your friends think of the cable.

P.S. I would like to thank my gf for putting up with me and assisted in the blind test over the weekend. :T

[aarsoe]

Geoff

;x( ;x( ;x(

May the god of High Fidelities be with you all...


Oh - and to be fair, the salesrep did not con me. Did that all by my self :T :T :T

[Kemp]

nyny,

The cable has shipped end of last week. I hope for it to be here end of this week.

Marius

[Kemp]

OK, got it.

I received my cable today. Incidently on my way to my audio shop. While there I thought it good to take the cable in and do a quick review. Unfortunately they have sold out again on the Rotel RCD 1072 and were awaiting new stock. We used the RCD02 instead. We used a Yamaha RX-V1200 for this review with Boston VR3 mains. What follows now is perhaps not the most scientific for most of you but please bear with it. We used an analogue cable of a wellknown company that retails for exactly double what I paid for my coax. So in essence we compared cables and DAC's at the same time. Some might believe that the DAC's in the Rotel should be of higher standard than those in the Receiver. Therefor the analogue "should" sound better. It is a difference of night and day. I forgot to mention that my ears are very far from being "audiophile quality" and I might not know all the audio terms that I should I suppose. The better one by far was the Coax. The sound through the analogue sounded like it came through a very small box whereas the sound through the coax sound like it is in a big open space and coming from everywhere. Oh yes, the music I used was Seether :T and Linkin Park.

The guy at the shop was impressed by the quality and workmanship of this cable, which I have to agree with.

In the mean time I got home and quickly connected it to my system being a Yamaha RX-V1300 receiver and a Pioneer DV344 DVD player (Still saving for a good CD Player) and Boston VR3 mains. The huge difference I experienced immediately is the control over the bass. This is also extremely noticible.

Bear in mind this was a quick review. I am still going to do the proper blind test with my buddies as promised before in the next week. Time is a limiting factor at the moment

I am Satisfied so far. :B

Marius

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

For those that only haunt Club Rotel, HERE'S another review in the Catcables forum

Geoff

[dennis123]

Hi,

Afther reading this thread about the optical cable form catcables I need some advise.

I recently bought a RSP 1098, RMB 1075 and the RDV 1060. Last week I ordered some quality Component cables for the image, but I also need some quality cables for the sound.

Now I'm convinced to buy this cable from catcables, but I also need good cables between the 1098 and the 1075.

Which cables are the ones I should buy?

[whmacs]

Hi,

Which cables are the ones I should buy?

Well, if money is no issue you could go Kingcats all round. These are silver cables (great for detail) and shielded. I use these on my 2 -channel gear as I only need a couple of them.

Another choice would be to use Silvercats (great detail once again) to connect the left, centre and right channels of your processor to the amp and coppercats to do the left and right rear channels.

cheers,
Stephen