I just installed my first ever glass Toslink cable, from Lifatec, to use with another source with my DS.
Until then I’ve been using an Analysis Plus ‘medical grade’ plastic cable and it reliably passed 24/192 without issues but the sound was a little soft and lacking top end details, compared to other inputs, to my ears in my system. I always make sure I unplug other cables when comparing.
The difference this glass cable made is not subtle - wow. More bass, more detail and increased desire to turn up the volume more and more without listening fatigue.
I wonder what the differences between glass and plastic cables, could be due to?
Both cables support bitperfect playback at 24/192 and there’s essentially no EM/RMI, no groundloops, no leakage current loops involved.
Many others have noted positive improvements with using glass too, not just with the DS, so I wonder what it could be.
The plastic cable is 1m in length and Lifatec is 20 inches, so the glass cable is around half the length. It’s possible a shorter plastic cable would be an improvement on the 1m length.
Even though the DS does a class leading job with jitter reduction, I guess less jitter with the Lifatec glass fibers still helps even more?