I plug my three SB3's into various DACs and haven't paid too much attention to the kind of digital coax cable I've been using. In fact, I've used a number of different cables and haven't been able to hear any difference whatsoever between them. The analog outputs--yes, I hear a difference; the different DACs I use--yes, I can hear a difference between them. But the cables have been contributing nothing, I thought, so I sold off the expensive ones (Illuminations D-60, Acoustic Zen MC2, Cardas Lightning) and installed DH Labs D-75 Supersonic that I found in the bottom of my cable box. I did this about a month ago. Sunday night I finally got around to listening to the SB3 in my big system downstairs, where it is connected to an Electrocompaniet DAC, BAT VK-30SE preamp, and ARC VT100 MkIII amp into Genesis 500 speakers. I sat down and couldn't believe the muddy, boomy, bad sound I was hearing! I double-checked my SB3 settings and my connections, and then the bit rate of the album I was playing, and couldn't find anything amiss. I thought I was imagining things, so I put the actual CD of the album I had been listening to in my Ayre CD player and there was no mistake, the CD was fine and sounded great, the SB3 stream sounded like utter car audio or boombox crap! I have never heard such sound out of that system. Suddenly I remembered the digital cable switch I had made. I no longer had any other "high quality" digital cables after my sell-off, so I just connected one normal interconnect (one of a set of Ensemble Dynaflux, the Swiss interconnects and power cords I use throughout this system) between the SB3 and the DAC and BINGO! all the great sound is back, the SB3 is making music again, and I can't tell the difference between the CD on the Ayre and the stream from the SB3. Because the regular single interconnect made such a great improvement, I guess I won't go shopping to repurchase one of the high-end digital cables I sold last month. But no more Super Sonic for me. Anyone want to borrow mine to A/B for themselves?
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