Hi kind folks…ive just about finished my cable upgrade project. The last remaining cable to swap out is my AES/EBU cable connecting my digital player to my Direct Stream DAC.
The cable in play now is a Bryston cable. I believe it to be fairly good quality and costs about $200.
Any suggestions out there? I am unable to use USB and i like the balanced concept. However i believe the aes/ebu cables are limited to 192 vs. Higher resolution capabilities using usb.
Much appreciated!
TJ
I like this one, about $250 in US dollars.
I had ArcticCables build me one out of Van de Hull wire that is quite nice sounding (though I use the HDMI input now and it’s the only input connected), Was very hard to tell the difference between these connections with this cable, the HDMI seemed ever so subtly better.
I’ll second Audio Sensibility. They’re located 20 minutes from where I live. I had the Statement version of the AES/EBU and I found it to be very well made a little on the stiff side and a good performer.
thanks, I’ve had Audio Sensibility speaker cables in the past, and thought they were nice sounding. of course, i swapped them out about 3 cables sets ago!
their Statement AES/EBU cable looks pretty slick.
I’m using a Kimber Kable Orchid and have not thought about replacing it. Although if I were shopping around I’d personally look at the Wireworld options because I like their HDMI cables. Luckily I’m not in the market!
+1 for Arctic Cables…He’s built a couple of headphone cables for me. I’m using a Blue Jeans Cable AES EBU cable between my DAC and Bryston BDP-1. Works great.
I tried wireworld platinum and chord Sarum t (both aes/ebu) and preferred the latter. Not really a fair fight, however, because the chord is more expensive.
Most of my other cables are wireworld.
Iconoclast Gen 1 or Belden BAV both work good. I use Belden BAV from the Iconoclast site.
Hi,
The link I’m giving you is my own (former) personal cable to connect a transport to a dac.
The ONLY reason it’s for sale is I moved up to a Esoteric SACD Player and no longer use a separate transport.
Offer TMR $200 less than their asking price and see what they say.
BEST XLR AES/EBU 110 ohm Digital cable I EVER owned and I owned MANY.
I use ALL Silent Source Audio cables in my setup.
The owner Frank Dickens is nice and easy to deal with one on one.
Tom - NJ
Awesome. Thanks Tom.
Just bought a Triode Wire Labs AES/EBU as a replacement for a Wire World Starlight 7. Wasn’t expecting much of a change, but there is. Not night and day, but easily discernible for the first notes. Only has about 14 hours on it right now and keeps getting better.
Now I am going to try one of their USB cables. If I get these same results with that, an Obsession power cable will be in my near future.
I can recommend “AudioQuest Carbon Digital Audio AES/EBU”. Great value for the money.
For AES/EBU, use 110 +/- 15 ohm XLR gen I cables. The ICONOCLAST AES / EBU generation one are for AES/EBU and analog, both, as this is what the studios use, and don’t need two different cables. One for analog and one for AES/EBU. The XLR can do both ANALOG and AES/EBU as the generation I ICONOCLAST and BAV design.
The ICONOCLAST generation II cables are biased for home audio, both analog (RCA and XLR) and S/PDIF (RCA design). The 4x4 designs are ~ 75-ohm so they work best for most home applications to maximize audio with the 1x4 RCA (S/PDIF coaxial) and 4x4 XLR designs (analog).
Don’t use the more $$$ series II ICONOCLAST IC’s for AES/EBU digital, as they won’t work as well as the cheaper generation one’s that are specifically designed for the 110 ohm AES/EBU XLR application.
Either the series I or II XLR and RCA can be used for analog. The series I XLR is optimized for AES/EBU and the series II XLR is OPTIMIZED analog.
Here is the chart.
GEN 1 RCA ANALOG.
GEN II RCA ANALOG optimized and S/PDIF (75 ohm).
GEN I XLR ANALOG and AES/EBU (110 ohm).
GEN II XLR ANALOG optimized.
So we did think of analog and digital, both, in the product line and to condense the SKU’s needed to optimize cables around the impedance for digital and 1x4 and 4x4 conductor design for analog.
The pro’s use ONE XLR design so the BAV XLR cable is made for them, analog and AES/EBU.
The general impedance issue, ~75 ohm coaxial and ~110 ohm AES/EBU is true for digital cables in general. Look for that nominal impedance depending on what you are using as your digital.
Best,
Galen Gareis
Has anyone tried the WW Gold Starlight 7 AES/EBU 110 Ohm cable? Is it close enough to the Platinum version?