Mattzack2 - You're right. I was referring to coax (either 75 or 110 ohm). I don't consider fiber optics a cable (in electrical sense). I don't know much about USB. The reason for Toslink being inferior is slow voltage-light conversion and therefore longer edge that is more exposed to ambient noise on the receiver side.
Jitter rejecting DAC (like Benchmark) makes not only cables non-issue but also transport. I use the cheapest decent DVD player I could find ($60 Sony) with great results (and have DVD and MP3 playback + great tracking). Benchmark DAC1 has jitter bandwidth of just few Hz and at frequencies of interest (kHz) has way over 100dB rejection. Benchmark tested it with 1000' of cable - no audible difference.
Not every DAC labeled as "upsampling" is really that. Often companies use it instead of "oversampling". Bel Canto DAC3, if I remember correctly, have same jitter rejecting properties. As for the transport - as long as it is "bit-transparent" (no DSP processing or digital volume control) there will be no difference. It is big selling point of upsampling DACs but some people prefer to use NOS DACs - it's subjective. I found that stand alone, jitter rejecting DAC allows me to connect TV as well as computer (Benchmark has 3 digital inputs) and serves as preamp since it has volume control and input selector (I don't do analog).
Jitter rejecting DAC (like Benchmark) makes not only cables non-issue but also transport. I use the cheapest decent DVD player I could find ($60 Sony) with great results (and have DVD and MP3 playback + great tracking). Benchmark DAC1 has jitter bandwidth of just few Hz and at frequencies of interest (kHz) has way over 100dB rejection. Benchmark tested it with 1000' of cable - no audible difference.
Not every DAC labeled as "upsampling" is really that. Often companies use it instead of "oversampling". Bel Canto DAC3, if I remember correctly, have same jitter rejecting properties. As for the transport - as long as it is "bit-transparent" (no DSP processing or digital volume control) there will be no difference. It is big selling point of upsampling DACs but some people prefer to use NOS DACs - it's subjective. I found that stand alone, jitter rejecting DAC allows me to connect TV as well as computer (Benchmark has 3 digital inputs) and serves as preamp since it has volume control and input selector (I don't do analog).