On the back of DACs, CD players/transports and DDC etc there are the following connections I2S HDMI, I2S RJ45, AES/EBU, BNC, RCA and Optical.
I would imagine they all operate differently from a technical point of view, but is one technically better than the other or is there ’ no better one’.
Also, does one sound better than the other or is it just down personal preference with ’ your ears, with your music, with your system, in your room’?
Thank you.
Roger.
I just finished reading a thread online about another vendor’s latest offering, a transport.
Some users were finding the USB great, others found it not so great.
Of course they were all connecting it to different kit.
System matching is the key. Every device has strengths, “best” inputs/outputs are part of this and may depend on the chain.
In our lounge system we feed NDX2 via Coax BNC and Toslink. Both sound great! The Toslink is the only digital output from our Sky Q box, so there wasn’t really a choice.
PS5 feeds an SMSL PO100Pro via USB then Toslink to nDAC. That also sounds great, as far as games go, even with a conversion between physical formats! Also sometimes used for niche DVDs (not all are available online).
I believe the correct answer will be, it depends. As @Mulberry mentions above different connection have different strengths. To add to that the devices on each end, will each typically have an output that might be a better sounding output on that device. For eg. many devices these days have great sounding/USB is there best sounding input/output. In the case of my specific DAC, USB happens to be the worst sounding input. As @Mulberry also mentions, different connection use difference sources for their clock signal. So if one of your devices has a superior clock vs another, that can impact which connection will sound the best.
Years back it seemed if offered, AES was often the best sounding connection, more recently USB & I2S are often the preferred choice.
I have two CD Transports a Roksan Caspian CD M2 and a Moon 260DT, both have coaxial RCA and AES connections and both sound just that little bit better using their AES connections into the same down stream DAC/Amplifier/Speaker system.
On another forum the CD Transport guru’s all seem to favour the I2S connections, but Ive never had or heard in a demo any equipment using that connection, so no idea how good that is.
I also think the quality of the cables used will have an influence on the ultimate sound quality, so worth investing in the best cables you can afford or are prepared to pay for.
I use a Chord Epic Coaxial RCA cable and a Cardas Clear AES/EBU cable.
From my LG C2 TV in my Study System I use the optical output to my DAC as this sounds considerably better than the HDMI eARC output, when streaming Tidal Music Video’s and Concerts, so its probably all down to how good the device implementation is for the different outputs.
I’m also using the HDMI-Audio outputs from my two Panasonic Blu-ray Players into my two DACs for Hi-Res audio from Blu-ray discs and both of those set-ups sound fantastic.
Technically none of them have any issues in getting the data from A to B. Where they differ is in the accuracy of clocking and the amount of noise they either pass or reject. Which means I agree with others above in that the best one is going to depend on the individual system.
With digital music, the key seems to be isolating the DAC stage of a system as much as possible from unwanted signal noise to allow it to perform at its best.