$1500 coaxial cable?

[audiophileboss]

What is that chris? A type of cable?

[Grainger49]

Your post is causing me to muse.  Is digital harder to transmit than analog?

Digital is a series of steps, like a square wave.  Square waves start and end with an "infinite" frequency," the rise and fall of the square wave.  This is hard to achieve without some delay, that is, a finite rise time.

Trying to remember some of what I learned in school, transmission lines need to be terminated properly.  Any mis-match in impedance between source and cable or cable and termination (destination) causes reflections (echoes) back the opposite direction, smearing of the signal. 

So IF I have had enough coffee, the source impedance and destination impedance are as critical as the velocity of propagation, intrinsic impedance (same as the source and destination impedance) and the cable capacitance.

This leads me to believe a good digital cable should be a well engineered device for proper operation.  Maybe they should include their own termination device?

There was some fooling around with a slotted line and a TDR in the lab that week.  It had a lot to do with standing waves.  And it is time for more coffee.

[Chris]

Yep, check it out on their site.. And Mr. G, I am not sure who's post you are referring to, but you prove to me just how much I don't belong here hahaha, I tried hard to follow your post with my very limited technical understanding.. I will get coffee also and try again..   All I can say is, you're the man!...

[audiophileboss]

They seem interresting enough. Can't say I will go for them. But if I come accross a pair I will pick them up and let you guys know

[Chris]

Awesome... Thank you kindly...

[adamct]

Grainger,

I don't understand the technical issues, but what you are describing matches up with why Blue Jeans Cable makes a point of using Canare RCAP plugs on their coaxial cables. Here is what Canare has to say about these plugs:

"Generic

[HF9]

That's one thing I obsess about. I like to change out any 50ohm (or less) RCA style digital connections with 75ohm BNC. It's a relatively cheap process, just pull the RCA out, drill a larger hole, deburr, install and solder in a Vampire $12 BNC chassis connector and now you're rocking at 75 ohms

There's also the 110ohm AES EBU balanced digital cables, I wrote about those here:

[NightFlight]

Well, cabling trade-offs have always been between full+smooth or lean+detail. However, there is a different kind of animal. Liquid metal conductors are a complete shift in performance. Very costly and your ear would have to make up its own mind about them.  I'm just lucky to have a pair of prototypes.

Unfortunately the HD800 connectors proved to be too finicky for Teo to go that route. 

http://www.teoaudio.com/about.php

[Grainger49]

IIRC, Paul Joppa said the RCA plug/jack was invented for connections inside a radio.  It wasn't designed to carry the smallest (phono) signal within an audio system.

IMHO, The BNC connector should have been adopted by manufacturers in the 70s when high end components started to roll out.

[Doc B.]

Well, cabling trade-offs have always been between full+smooth or lean+detail. However, there is a different kind of animal. Liquid metal conductors are a complete shift in performance. Very costly and your ear would have to make up its own mind about them.  I'm just lucky to have a pair of prototypes.

Unfortunately the HD800 connectors proved to be too finicky for Teo to go that route. 

http://www.teoaudio.com/about.php

Galinstan, presumably? Kind of like making an interconnect from solder? Or a thermometer?

[Grainger49]

Interesting, liquid metal.  I know of only one and it seems to be treated as a toxic chemical these days (I rolled it around on my hands for decades, but that might be a clarification).  Maybe that is the reason for recycling? 

[Paul Birkeland]

I wonder how easily the gallium could leak out...

[Armaegis]

I remember reading about liquid cables before. Many years ago there was another company making some sort of liquid ceramic something speaker cable.

[Grainger49]

According to Wikipedia, which knows all, Gallium melts at 85F.  Is there a heater in the cables?  My house never reaches 85.

[adamct]

Gallium melts at 85 deg. Fahrenheit. Galinstan is a eutectic alloy that, according to Wikipedia, has a melting point of (-2) deg. Fahrenheit in most forms (some forms apparently have a melting point of 52 deg. Fahrenheit, although it isn't clear from the article if these are actually Galinstan or some other alloy entirely).