Is MCT cable highly recommended?

[Chericelise]

Iam considering trading off my Esoteric K05 for the MCT 450 or possibly the latest MCT 500. I understand the Mcintosh has the MCT cable to connect to the Macintosh Pre-amp.
So can I check if u guys use this over the other higher end XLR?
Kindly share your thoughts and experience?

Thank you.

[substance]

From what I understand, the mct cable carries the signal in i2s form before it is converted to s/pdif for coax/optical(and their balanced form). This has valid technical advantages such as absence of jitter(or nearly none). I can explain it in detail if you are interested.

Your only options are xlr and optical if you are running longer length cables(30ft+).

[Chericelise]

Originally Posted by substance

From what I understand, the mct cable carries the signal in i2s form before it is converted to s/pdif for coax/optical(and their balanced form). This has valid technical advantages such as absence of jitter(or nearly none). I can explain it in detail if you are interested.

Your only options are xlr and optical if you are running longer length cables(30ft+).

Thank u.
would appreciate it.
I will be running 1.5-2m at most.

[Audio 1]

The MCT cable is the only way to play back an SACD disc layer from the transport.

[substance]

Ok the data stream consists of clock, word(data), word length, ground.

Clock is your reference for each bit. I.e. If you clock switched on and off 10 times, you expect 10 bits of information to pass.

Word is your entire data stream. Your left and right audio tracks are on this one lane road, one after the other. It also includes all other data(text, extra unused bits etc.)

Word length tells the decoder the size of your data(i.e 16 bit or 24bit or 32bit). It also tells where left track ends and the right track begins on the stream.

Ground is the ground, simple enough.

Simplified example: take a 16 bit stereo signal.

You clock will switch on and off 32 times a second
Your word will have a pair of 16 bit data. Left 16 bit first and right 16 bit after.
Your word length will have 16 ones first and 16 zeros right after.

When word lenth is 1, your decoder knows it’s decoding left ch data. It repeats 16 ones and 16 zeros so it knows the signal is 16 bits.

Keep in mind this above event represents 1 hz of your signal. If your sample is a 20khz signal, this happens 20,000 times a second. Think of the bits as your high and khz as the width of your signal. 16 bit high, 20khz wide.

Mct carries the signal in this separate form. It has 4 wires, one for each above item.

For coax and optical output which only have two wires. I2c needs to be converted from 3 separate streams and a ground to one stream and a ground. So clock and word length info is not carried. The signal is reclocked at the other end of the coax/optical cable at the digital receiver. As you can imagine, any loses of these zeros and ones will mess up the order of the data and reclocking is a guestimaion at best in real world situations. This is why high quality cables matter to minimize loses.

I hope it is clear now.

[Chericelise]

Originally Posted by substance

Ok the data stream consists of clock, word(data), word length, ground.

Clock is your reference for each bit. I.e. If you clock switched on and off 10 times, you expect 10 bits of information to pass.

Word is your entire data stream. Your left and right audio tracks are on this one lane road, one after the other. It also includes all other data(text, extra unused bits etc.)

Word length tells the decoder the size of your data(i.e 16 bit or 24bit or 32bit). It also tells where left track ends and the right track begins on the stream.

Ground is the ground, simple enough.

Simplified example: take a 16 bit stereo signal.

You clock will switch on and off 32 times a second
Your word will have a pair of 16 bit data. Left 16 bit first and right 16 bit after.
Your word length will have 16 ones first and 16 zeros right after.

When word lenth is 1, your decoder knows it’s decoding left ch data. It repeats 16 ones and 16 zeros so it knows the signal is 16 bits.

Keep in mind this above event represents 1 hz of your signal. If your sample is a 20khz signal, this happens 20,000 times a second. Think of the bits as your high and khz as the width of your signal. 16 bit high, 20khz wide.

Mct carries the signal in this separate form. It has 4 wires, one for each above item.

For coax and optical output which only have two wires. I2c needs to be converted from 3 separate streams and a ground to one stream and a ground. So clock and word length info is not carried. The signal is reclocked at the other end of the coax/optical cable at the digital receiver. As you can imagine, any loses of these zeros and ones will mess up the order of the data and reclocking is a guestimaion at best in real world situations. This is why high quality cables matter to minimize loses.

I hope it is clear now.

thank u for the detailed info shared and makes decisions much easier now