[Phil A]

Phil, I was referring to digital cable, fiber optic and HDMI.

I understood, but a digital cable taking a signal from a CD player does not have 1s and 0s flowing thru it.  That is a common misconception,

[pantone172]

This is true, the signal is being converted to analog by the players digital-to-analog (D/A) converter.

[95bcwh]

What??  We're talking about the 1-0-1-0 data transmission before it goes into the DAC. The point is, it's never 1-0-1-0 because the voltage signal is never a perfect square wave.

This is true, the signal is being converted to analog by the players digital-to-analog (D/A) converter.

[pantone172]

In digital audio, the representation of the audio signal is no longer directly analogous to the sound wave. Instead, the value of the signal is sampled at regular intervals by an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter (or ADC), which produces numbers (digits) that represent the value of each sample. This stream of numbers represents a digital audio signal, which can be stored as a computer file and transmitted across a network.

In order to listen to a digital audio signal, it must be converted to analog by a digital-to-analog (D/A) converter (or DAC). In most home stereo systems, the D/A conversion takes place inside the CD player. Computer sound cards, MiniDisc recorders and DATs have both A/D converters (for recording) and D/A converters (for playback). Many home systems have a combination of digital and analog components, but all audio systems end with analog signals at the speakers or headphones.

[95bcwh]

Communication breakdown!!!!!

You came to question why a digital cable makes a difference because you think that it's 1-0-1-0 signal that the digital cable is supposed to be transmitting. People here already told you that it's not exactly 1-0-1-0 because voltage signal transmission cannot be strictly 1-0-1-0, different cables will do it differently and therefore will make your system sound "different".

Again, we are talking about digital cable transmitting signal from a transport to a DAC. The data on your CD is 1-0-1-0, but the moment this gets into a cable, it's no longer 1-0-1-0. Let's not get side-track into audio basic of A/D, D/A (your understanding of A/D, D/A is correct).

In digital audio, the representation of the audio signal is no longer directly analogous to the sound wave. Instead, the value of the signal is sampled at regular intervals by an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter (or ADC), which produces numbers (digits) that represent the value of each sample. This stream of numbers represents a digital audio signal, which can be stored as a computer file and transmitted across a network.

In order to listen to a digital audio signal, it must be converted to analog by a digital-to-analog (D/A) converter (or DAC). In most home stereo systems, the D/A conversion takes place inside the CD player. Computer sound cards, MiniDisc recorders and DATs have both A/D converters (for recording) and D/A converters (for playback). Many home systems have a combination of digital and analog components, but all audio systems end with analog signals at the speakers or headphones.

[pantone172]

sorry, sounded like that's where you were going with your earlier post