Has anyone tried different AES cables with the Vivaldi other than the basic brands suggested here. Shunyata Sigma or Omega for example? Are the potential SQ gains worth the extra resources?
Hello,
I have got two Transparent Reference AES cables. The sound of my stereo is fantastic, that is all I can say. The AES cables play their role in my system, but no idea of the importance of these cables in the overall sound quality.
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I use Atlas Mavros AES on my system which retail for about £450 in the UK. My dealer, who only sells audio cables, advised that it was not a good investment to spend anymore than this, despite my willingness to do so. Clearly, many of the recommended AES on this forum are even cheaper than the Atlas. Whilst I have not compared my Atlas with any other AES cables, there does seem to be a reasonable level of consensus that there is a ceiling beyond which the value for money aspect of AES diminishes significantly.
I have tried Mavros and thought it was quite ok compared to others. I slowly moved up the chain (including the Transparent reference which came after the Mavros and which I thought was very good and better than the Mavros) The Nordost Valhalla was ok too but my favourite for quite some time was the Siltech triple or double crown thingy aes. I was quite content until I heard the Entreq Olympus. Now that has stayed !!! And yes I have a Vivaldi stack
I received the set of Shunyata Sigma V1 AES cables today and they are reburning in now. I switched back and forth from the Van Damm factory cables and found that the Sigmas are better in terms of image depth and fill in. They reduced sibilance on female vocals as well. The differences are clearly there, but this was an expensive gain. Not going back now that I have heard them, but moving to Shunyata Alpha V2 power cords on the dCS components was a very big improvement by comparison. I am mentioning brands here as these made improvements in my system, but I did not do a cable shootout. There may be more to gain with different cables, but I am happy with what I am hearing with these now. Thanks for the comments.
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If by " factory cables" you mean those that came in the box as supplied by dCS I have never found them to provide cables from Van Damme. Still things may have changed at some point so , just out of interest, are you able to confirm their origin? Van Damme label their cables clearly so the jacket will display both Van Damme ,the product reference e.g. 268-482-000, type and impedance.
Pete, mine are Van Damme (the name is printed on the cables). I bought my dCS boxes late last year. I think the cables are 1.5 m. I bought some QED AES/EBU cables as replacements, partly to get something a bit nicer, and partly because I didn’t need that length. I did not test them one brand vs the other. Now, amazingly, none of the connecting cables touch any of the others, but I would not claim that is any more than an aesthetic benefit.
The cables that came with my used Vivaldi that I replaced with both the cheapo Mogami (part number 3080) cables and the Shunyata Sigma V1s are Van Damme 268-402-050 110-ohm digital audio upofc microphone cable, per the labeling on the cable. In terms of sound the Mogami cheapos were average, then Van Damme better, and Shunyata Sigma V1 better still. That is, and shall be the extent of my AES shootout for now. I like the Shunyaya soundstage depth and fill in, bass is better and female vocals and cymbals sound great with little ringing or sibilance. Overall a more refined sound. I am also running the Mogami 75 ohm cables with the clock per recommendations from this forum. Is this also a questionable choice?
If you like them then they are great. If you don’t then they aren’t 
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Objectively, and at the simplest level, all that is required is a 75ohm coax cable terminated with 75 ohm BNC connectors and of sufficient length to reach between the components. Subjectively it’s a case of each to their own.
NB : there is another current thread running on our community forum about clock cables.
My view is that different wordclock cables do make audible differences. They also can measure differently of course ( see eye pattern tests).
My odd finding over the past twenty odd years is that , for reasons that I cannot explain, 75 ohm coax cables that make good sounding music data carriers make poor sounding wordclock cables and vice versa ( so far no exceptions to this rule of thumb). Surely they should be equally good for either purpose?
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Hi All, I using in my Vivaldi DAC, UPSAMPLER and CLOCK Crystal Cables Monet for Energy. Any advise of matching?
Best,
Would you kindly be a bit more specific about which cables you are using for what purpose? I have just looked at the Crystal Connect 's ( their new name) product web pages and as far as I can see few if any of the Monet range are technically suitable for use in a dCS system. Of course Crystal do have some compatible cables in their other ranges e.g. Van Gogh. NB: None of their network cables are compatible technically as they are shielded and may introduce noise into the dCS equipment which does not have ground points for the shields to connect to.
In brief, network cables should be unshielded, AES/EBU cables must be 110 ohm impedance and SP/dif and wordclock cables 75 Ohm. Look at Van Gogh, Diamond Digit, Dreamline and Absolute Dream for these (except network cables) in Crystal’s lineup.
Using MIT Oracle MA-X AES/EBU for signals and MIT Magnum BNC for the 4 clock cables on the Vivaldi.
Very happy with the setup
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I also did like the Transparent Reference, but this was substantially improved by the Entreq Olympus aes (surprise surprise) and even further with DUAL entreq olympus
Hello everyone,
Been away for some. All interconnects (only Ethernet interconnects except one aes) in my audio system were wireworld chroma. Have recently replaced all with audio quest diamond. Looking back the WW cables were good workhorses, but they bear no comparison to the AQ diamonds (at 6-8 times the price, they’re supposed to be way better, but somehow intuition does not suggest this). A lot of the ‘wince’ moments went away. But the big bump up was replacing the old Vovox textura AES with again AQ diamond. Now no more wincing, I mean ‘no more’ even at relatively high levels.
I am still having issues with resolution on some 60’s rock recordings, but no ear bleeding. I’m thinking better clock cables may be the next step up. Have already moved from van damme and belden to custom silver jobs, now thinking of trying shunyata omega’s. Any guidance/comments appreciated.
By the way, I read somewhere else in this forum that cables sometime burn in fully and unexpectedly only way, way down the line. I agree. These cables are now around 800 hours and I still hear improvement now and then. They started sounding great about 4-500 hours in.
Best
Aubrey