[sdiy] S/PDIF cable. DDD & ADD

[Dave Krooshof]

Hello Batz,

I enjoy your presence here a lot. Yours and Harrys mails are
conveiniently marked with peppers by Eudora. I mostly email
in Dutch, mostly, so the sdiy list is the only list that the mood
watch marks the interesting posts. Fine feature.

I particulairy like the ADD post, and I will look for the
mentioned book.

About your DDD post:
I use video cable for it. That's not RF coax (antenna wire),
but more like a mono high quality audio cable.
Works fine over 7 metres in my studio.
'Digital cables' is an esotheric subject. Lost of bogus info.
As spdif is quite high pitched, echo's in the cable can
confuse the data transport. I can see the cable
matters then. I guess video cable works, as echo's
and bad shielding are visible on screen. This will guarantee
that quality is an issue for every customer.
Audio cables are only discussed by people with bats ears
(and a lot of money) who start coax cable hoaxes.

It's a one way protocol, so no-one is checking weather data
was not received well c.q. needs corrections.
I noticed data errors in cables in three ways:
- a blurred stereo image, this is what causes people to get talked
into 100$/m cable on hifi lists. ("oh, your using *that* kind of
cable. Well, that's just like flushing all the money you spend
on that seperate DAC down the drain.")
In fact, it might be the error correction doen't know how
to correct some of the wrong bits.
- a sharp sound, due to the precence of errors in bits
that were sort of corrected.
- ticks. errors that cause the wordlength to be misinterpreted.

All these were corrected in using just any good video cable
with proper shielding, nicely soldered plugs, and bought
during new moon.
I'd choose the one that is souple enough te be led through the
your "mess" while mucking about with boxes that have their
plugs on the wong side (rear).


BAI, Dave


Some more thoughts:
32: Why do all soldering irons available in the .nl come with
stiff wires for safety?
I have made several burns in my carpet and trowsers
with irons that flipped out of the holder due to tension
in the cable. What safety risk did they cancel out?

33: Only the amps and filters I got from a chemical
researcher have the same connectivity on *both* the front
and the rear and. This should be the default choice.
Every commercial object with connections only on the back
is cheap cheap cheap.

36: On the asylum issue Tim Ressel posted here:
>ADD, etc:  I imagine the brain like a vast Moog. There
>are 1000 controls and 1000 patch combos. The heap big
>medicine men of our tribe listen to sound, note that
>it sounds like another they heard, and slap a label on
>the cassette (or 8-track, that being about how
>sophisticated shrinks seem to be). I often wonder: If
>you hung around an asylum long enough, would your
>knobs get tweaked thus making you nuts? Or would your
>"patch" be sufficiently different that it would not
>affect you?
I like the last idea, but (un)fornutnately the human
brain is able, to a certain extent, to change patches,
both temporairely and permanently.
Permantly is handy in order to learn how to play guitar
and ride a bike and then make that into a hardwired
patch, so you are able to do it again whenever needed.
Temporairy patches can occur in playing music, where
some parts of the brain borrowed by others to help
getting you through the concert. This is how playing
music can get realy trancy experience. It's also the
reason why you need to break into a concert/studiosession.
And the reason time (hours) is a hard to conceive fenomena
while doing musical timing (milliseconds)
Psychoses are known to be contaminating to
a certain extend. Well, it's more like hitchhiking.
I guess both knobs and patches get tweaked a bit.

12: I can't concentrate. But sometimes people may think
I am concentrated. But that's just me, totally distracted.

27: Sorry for my spelling. Hope you can enjoy it.
28: speaking of spelling, it was not Natoschka hanging out on this
list for sure.

>Y-ellow all.
>         Anyone able to give me some advice on what to use for S/PDIF 
>cable. Actually more of a choice between less than ideal cables 
>available to me right now.
>
>I can chose from the following.
>75 ohm coax.
>50 ohm coax
>or
>an assortment of shielded audio-type cable.
>
>The runs have to be 5 or 6 metres in length. I guess I could do it 
>shorter as the crow flies but it won't be as neat. (Yeah Ok so 
>'neat' is a subjective term here.) I know AES/EBU is supposed to be 
>110 ohm on a special figure 8 but I can't just run out and buy that 
>anywhere so it's a choice of the above.
>
>The S/PDIF runs will actually be running to/from AES/EBU transformer 
>coupled I/O 8 in all but the mileage may vary between sources. Some 
>are transformer coupled some aren't.
>
>So what can I reasonably get away with? Shielded or 50 ohm coax 
>would be ideal because I wouldn't have to butcher any plugs to get 
>the cable to fit. But if none of the above are suitable then I guess 
>I have to re-think everything.
>
>Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Be absolutely Icebox.
>
>  _ __        _       ____Happiness is a warm penguin____
>| "_ \      | |
>| |_)/  __ _| |_ ____       ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN
>|  _ \ / _` | __|___ |  Geek music by geeks for geeks
>| |_) | (_| | |_  / /
>|_,__/ \__,_|\__|/ /    Bullshit --> http://all-electric.com
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>Goodfortune    |_____|

-- 
____________________________________________________
And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles,
and all thy borders of pleasant stones. (Isaiah 54:12)

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