How can digital interconnect cables from a CD transport to an outboard DAC possibly affect the sound? Isn digital audio just ones and zeros?
A very common misconception about digital signal transmission with respect to audio is that if the signal does not get corrupted to the point of losing or changing the 1’s and 0’s, that nothing else can go wrong. If the transmission system had been designed with cost no object, and by engineers familiar with all the known foibles and problems of digital transmission of audio signals, then this might be subtantially true. No differences could rear their ugly head. Unfortunately, the systems we ended up with DO NOT remain unaffected by such things as jitter, where the transistion from a 1 to a 0 is modulated with respect to time. There are many ways that jitter can affect the final digtial to analog conversion at the DAC. Jitter on the transmitted signal can bleed or feed through the input reciever, and affect the DAC.
Related Questions
- How can digital interconnect cables from a CD transport to an outboard DAC possibly affect the sound? Isn digital audio just ones and zeros?
- How can digital interconnect cables from a CD transport to an outboard DAC possibly affect the sound?
- What affect does analog compatibility mode (zero stretching) have on normal digital operation?
