Wednesday, April 15, 2009

"Signature Series 77" Coaxial Digital Audio Interconnect Cable with Canare's Remarkable "True 75 Ohm" RCA Connectors

The digital coaxial cable that I am using between the CDP and the Havana NOS Tube DAC is the "Signature Series 77" Coaxial Digital Audio Interconnect Cable with Canare's remarkable true 75 ohn RCA male connectors terminated at both ends.

All generic RCA type audio plugs and cables have been around for over 50 years, but the old solder-type plugs typically have a low impedance of about 25 ohms only. They exhibit extremely poor return loss performance, bad VSWR, even when mated to high quality cable due to improper impedance matching. Some of the most expensive "high end" cables still rely on connector designs that are both electrically and mechanically inferior, in the end the true performance of the cable is not fully exploited and what would be a superior cable is let down due to connector to plug impedance mismatching leading to overall degradation.

Enter Canare's true 75 ohm RCA male plug, this is currently the only known true 75 ohm impedance RCA manufactured for digital signal transfer purposes and was the first and is still the industry standard.

I am no stranger to the Canare 75 ohm RCA plug since I have used them on many of my other home grown DIY silver digital cables in the past. As a radio operator, I am faced with impedance matching issues of transmission cables on quite a frequent basis and understand the importance to obtain proper impedance matching from the very start.

With proper impedance termination in mind for the digital signal between the CDP and the Havana I choose the
Cable Solutions" Signature Series 77" Coaxial Digital Audio Interconnect Cable with Canare's remarkable true 75 ohn RCA male connectors terminated at both ends. They are impedance matched to ensure flawless digital audio performance. They have a usable bandwidth of over 200 MHz and VSWR is typically less than 1.1:1 from DC to 200 MHz! The design ensures highly consistent, reliable connections. You know that you have read advertisements about some digital coaxial cables with rated bandwidth up to several Ghz, forget it as the connectors they use will never allow such a performance (It's pure BS) , the high VSWR would never allow this and in essence what you had read is marketing hype! To perform at such high frequencies, they would need to use true microwave connectors such as the SMA or SMB types.

The Cable:

Oversized 7.7mm Canare precision coaxial cable is selected and used, this high-performance cable features two layers of braided copper shielding, joins Canare's 75 ohm impedance matched connectors and fully sheathed terminations in the quest for bit-perfect digital audio. The infamous Canare DigiFlex Gold cable assemblies use a smaller, 6.1mm, single-shielded, version of this cable and received acclaim and raving reviews. This higher calibre version cable would win the DigiFlex Gold probably quite easily. For the price asked I have not heard a better digital cable! US$39.00 and well worth every single penny since the results are worth much much more then this price, it can put many so called digital coaxial cables to shame. Check out the photos of my cable:-


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