Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable
I like…, June 15, 2008
ZOMG this is an awesome cable. Non audiophiles don’t realise how much ordinary cables change the shape of the bits. The edges are rounded, which just takes the clarity out of the signal. This cable does not have this problem.
Also, this is why the internets are bad for music distribution. As the signals travel often a long way, they bits get rounded too much.
High Quality 0′s and 1′s, June 14, 2008
It’s unfortunate that a company would sell a piece of CAT-5E for this much money. There are no such things as pristine 0′s and 1′s. I understand the ‘audiophile’ philosophy, but this is ridiculous. Digital signals do not get better with gold plating, or by paying enormous amounts of money. Digital signals are digital signals.
CAT-5 cables also relies on balanced lines which means that the signal is transmitted down the twisted pairs as inverses of each other. This technique effectively cancels out interference over CAT-5E without the $495 markup.
If you are looking for a “AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable”, buy yourself a 2 meter CAT-5E cable and pocket the rest.
Not Getting Any, June 13, 2008
I thought I would get laid more if I took hot bitches back to my place and showed them that I am a man of means and class because I own a $500, fifty-nine inch cable.
It didn’t work.
But the cable is great for auto-erotic asphixiation.
Alas, I was expecting better., June 15, 2008
For 400$, I would have expected the inner wiring to be made of pure gold or even carbon superconductors… But alas, it is only made out of copper. Needless to say, I quickly returned the standard cable to the store!
Don’t work, June 17, 2008
I insert both ends in my ears and not only does my music not sound better, it almost comes out muffled.
As it is with cheese…, June 16, 2008
You pretend tech-jokers, laugh all you want – this cable is the real deal. When I first received mine, I rushed to hook it up to my system. and was crestfallen; the edge of the music sounded as if it had been routed through an echo chamber. It only lasted for a fraction of a millisecond, but *I* could hear it. I immediately got on the phone to Denon, and as you can imagine, their support was superb. After asking me a few questions about my rig, the support person said “this is a question I am hating to be asking you, but did you follow the directional arrows when you plugged it in?” Well, I felt like he could see the face go beet red.
I regained my composure, and explained how embarassed I was, especially as a binary engineer. How could I have expected to get clean ones and zeroes through a backwards wire? The best way I can try to explain this to a neophyte is this: imagine grating cheese with the grater upside-down. Now, you might argue that if you push hard enough, cheese will still go through, and I will concede this point. But is the cheese the same? No, of course not. Instead of smooth strands worthy of a gourmet taco, you end up with a mushy facsimile better left to melting on a bowl of chili (no offense, chili fans).
And as it is with cheese, so it is with music; the real cheese versus a mushy facsimile. After I got off the phone, just for amusement, I scoped the signal with the wire – both ways. And wouldn’t you know it – phased correctly, I got a pristine signal; the ones and zeroes we are all looking for. But when flipped the wire, only 1% of the signal could be said to be within .005 volt of target. In essence, instead of something like 1011 0011 1001 0111 we would have .9 .1 .9 .9 … Well, you get the idea.
I rushed to put music back on. I immediately went for the powerful remastering of Iggy Pop’s Raw Power, often chosen by audiophiles to demonstrate nuance of the highest order. Of course, not satisfied with the decidedly low-resolution CD-ROM offering, I used the direct-to-disk vinyl recording. And before any of you geeks start yelling ‘Nyquist-Shannon’, slide down a sliding board, then down a flight of stairs and then try explaining to your sore butt some mumbo-jumbo about information theory.
At this point, words fail, but I will try: transcendence, ecstacy, bliss… sublime, magnifique, awesome, dude. To go farther would be to offend common decency. Buy this cable. If you were going to spend $500 for a hand-polished diamond needle – buy this cable. If you were going to have the Ethiopian sheep leather in your Ultrasones relined, buy this cable. You get the idea…
Buy this cable.
