Why do digital cables sound different?

It seems Paleriders opinion is that all digital cables sound the same and (I assume ignorant) people are just pretending they sound different.
Palerider, what digital cables have you tried and between what equipment before you arrived at your opinion?
Is it unreasonable to ask what experience you've had on which you base your opinion?

quote me:

"Anyone can hear the difference if just the right and wrong cables are put up against eachother. But most cables are about the same, no big diff. "

Strange; do I say they all sound the same? Or do I say most cables are much the same, but some stick out in either direction..

I am asking your experience with digital cables since you seem to know quite a bit about them as well as peoples perceptions of them. Surely your opinions must be based on something. Very simple Palerider.

Wire properties can certainly affect digital pulse characteristics. But, up to the point where a data "one" can be misinterpreted as a "zero" pulse characteristics don't affect the information which goes into the D/A converter.
So I don't find it "mysterious" at all that various cables sound the same. The mystery is why some folk think they sound different.

The only possibile explantion is increased jitter that you can get from passing signals between devices. I agree about the "ones and zeros" - these should be recognized properly and completely (so the bits are the same).

In this case, it may not be the fault of the cable but the way in which the components clock timing interacts.

Perhaps a device with superior PLL & timing/receiver ciruitry might sound the same with any cable when connected to a digital source (even a relatively jittery one).

Perhaps a device with poor PLL & timing/receiver ciruitry might sound different (more or less jitter depending on characteristics of signal received)...

Shadorne...If a cable causes a pulse risetime anomaly (such as a spike) it will happen for every pulse. All will be delayed or trigered early by the same amount, so jitter is not the result.