Why do digital cables sound different?

Lightminer - If DAC reclocks like Benchmark (asynchronous upsampling) then quality of the cable is not of importance. Benchmark tested it with thousand feet of CAT5 network cable and it did not show any audible effect. The reason for that is few Hz jitter bandwidth of the Benchmark providing suppression in order of -100dB at the frequencies of interest (kHz) on the top of already low level of jitter (order of -80dB).

For traditional non-upsampling DACs I would look for 1.5m coax (Toslink gives about 2x jitter) double or even triple shielded with high quality connectors. I would also look for the transport with slew rate in order of 5ns instead of typical 25ns and very good power supply (to minimize system noise induced jitter).

So may I assume that the less jitter a digital cable induces the "better" that cable will "sound"?

Is this induced jitter measurable from cable to cable? Could an absolute "best" be established using the lowest jitter criteria. And if this is true, why are so many digital cables (100s or more) available?

Or, is this purely a theoretical discussion?

Rja - AFAIK jitter is the only difference between digital cables. I don't know of anything else that can affect the sound. Jitter can be measured but many factors can change it - like level of electrical noise around, amount of system noise etc.

One cable might work very well, having perfect impedance matching, with fast slew rate outputs while the other might offer perfect shielding - important with slower transitions especially in noisy environment. In addition there are preferences of flexibility, color and overall quality. There are, of course, identical performance cables offered by different companies - same as with analog interconnects.

Why do you want to establish absolutely the best ($$$$)? My system and my ears are perhaps not good enough to appreciate the best cables (analog or digital).

I would still trust my ears or reviews more than measurements. Don't spend money if you cannot hear the difference.

It would be fun to ABX the Kimber D60 (almost 1k at 2m) with the Blue Jeans Belden 1694 $14 dollar or whatever cable. I'll have the Blue Jeans one, anyone got an extra D60 they can lend? He he. And don't misunderstand, I'm a Kimber fan overall, definitely. (FWIW, and I think we aren't supposed to talk about this, shhhhh, but I do 'believe' in ABX. I tried it with spoiled milk and normal milk and got it right 10 out of 10 times.)

10 out of 10 on spoiled milk test ain't bad - I got 6/10 on the milk and 7/10 on rotten eggs.