Sablon spdif / aes

Sablon Audio

Industry Expert, VIP Donor
May 22, 2015
1,637
1,515
583
Despite being a minority interest format in its sunset years, this particular model merits a thread of its own, partly because of its unusual construction but also its exceptional performance.

Almost every spdif cable out there is a coaxial, yet this design is neither shielded nor coaxial. It is in fact very different, being hand-built to a theoretical 75ohm characteristic impedance from bare wires and no shielding.

The underlying design starts with a solid silver hot conductor which is then hand-polished and coated with avm paint. It is then inserted into a woven silk tube and a copper return conductor is helically wound around it in a geometry which Townshend later marketed as a ‘Fractal’. So far so simple, however as with many elegant implementations the devil is in the detail since the conductors are different gauges to maintain its transmission line qualities. There was also a lot of testing of ostensibly identical wires from different producers to arrive at the best sounding combination.

Anyhow the proof of the pudding is in the eating and this model received a few very enthusiastic reviews, notably from Terry London who sold his mucho dinero reference cable to buy this one.

That was several years ago and more recently Jay from AudioBacon also reviewed it, which generated some enquires regarding clock versions. Looking closer at what was needed to create a 50ohm version, it became apparent that the Atlas BNC plugs I had been happily using all these years were actually 50ohm format rather than the 75ohm they claimed! Lemons and lemonade though as this presented an opportunity to enhance the cable by not only cutting back the insulation to 75ohm format but also by drilling out their monkey metal hot pin and pulling the silver wire all the way through to make direct contact within the bnc equipment jack. A great tweak and a couple of demo examples are in circulation, ideal for Chord Dave / Mscaler owners!

This spdif is also available with KLEI pure silver RCA plugs for those who must however BNC remains the goto recommendation as it is both 75ohm compliant and you also get to benefit from my direct contact plug mods.

An extrapolation of this design is also available in AES format using the superb Oyaide Focus xlr plugs.
 
An interesting comparison between my Sablon aes cable and a well used Gobel Lacorde. Front end is Taiko Extreme server via Intona Ultimate into Berkeley Alpha usb converter and then into Berkeley Ref 3 dac. My cable is quite new and will benefit from more break in time.

Last night I couldn’t tell much of a difference but this afternoon, the musical differentiators between Gobel and your AES cable were much clearer.In summary: Gobel is a slightly more refined less aggressive Cardas top of the line house Sound.

Your cable has audibly More clarity/detail of the instruments, localization and spacing. Definitely more 3D and you can hear further into the back of live human hands clapping in an auditorium/club. Pianos had more natural harmonic string and board tones on the right hand from middle C notes and chords.
Gobel imparts a more forward less 3D musical presentation and is tilted, balance-wise, on the lower midrange and especially Bass. As a result you also perceive it to be more macro dynamic (at the expense of some micro-dynamics). It has a faster impulse attack on the front, especially on drums and the first pluck of the string on a contra bass.

In visual terms your cable is truer to natures color and grey scale. The Gobel paints a vivid colorful picture and has too much contrast turned up, so the grey scale is limited (like a vivid 8 bit color monitor instead of the 10-12 bit that production houses uses that cost in the 10s of thousands) - pleasing to the eyes but a bit unnatural. So I can see why some people like the Gobel instead of a more natural balanced musical presentation. A spectral tone loudness control.
 
Gobel imparts a more forward less 3D musical presentation and is tilted, balance-wise, on the lower midrange and especially Bass. As a result you also perceive it to be more macro dynamic (at the expense of some micro-dynamics). It has a faster impulse attack on the front, especially on drums and the first pluck of the string on a contra bass.

In visual terms your cable is truer to natures color and grey scale. The Gobel paints a vivid colorful picture and has too much contrast turned up, so the grey scale is limited (like a vivid 8 bit color monitor instead of the 10-12 bit that production houses uses that cost in the 10s of thousands) - pleasing to the eyes but a bit unnatural. So I can see why some people like the Gobel instead of a more natural balanced musical presentation. A spectral tone loudness control.

My experience on Lacorde phono cable and interconnect was very close to the description above. Doesn't mean the Gobel is at disadvantage. In fact if you match the Lacorde with CH Precision components they would work like a dream team. I never heard Sablon but from many comments in Sablon threads it should work synergistically with tubes gears.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sablon Audio
Thanks for your comments Tang. I try to aim for a neutral presentation to suit both sand and tubes however it is quite easy to tweak the presentation to become denser or higher resolving.

You commented elsewhere about the platinum bocchino terminations, well they lean towards the cooler high resolution side of things whereas the silver plated ones are denser and more emotionally involving.

The cable referred to above is however still using the stock soldered Oyaide rhodium XLR plugs and will be rebuilt with Bocchino xlr for this customer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sujay
Thanks for your comments Tang. I try to aim for a neutral presentation to suit both sand and tubes however it is quite easy to tweak the presentation to become denser or higher resolving.

You commented elsewhere about the platinum bocchino terminations, well they lean towards the cooler high resolution side of things whereas the silver plated ones are denser and more emotionally involving.

The cable referred to above is however still using the stock soldered Oyaide rhodium XLR plugs and will be rebuilt with Bocchino xlr for this customer.
I have Silver, Gold and Platinum. I use them all in my system. The Platinum offers a window breaking type clarity. Any analog only systems with Lamm and horns are not going to lose density and emotional involvement with this Bochino Platinum ;).

It is good to hear your cables have options for buyers to pick to suit their system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sablon Audio
The aforementioned AES now reterminated with Bocchino BAXLR and sent back out to customer. There should be a nice delta on this one from both the plugs which also allow for set screw termination rather than solder. The customer asked for silver plated XLR as he wanted the sound tuned for more body than Neutral.

06D6A7C1-69FC-4E2D-BB26-2A7922FDEDBF.jpeg
 
DD527284-AD36-467B-87B7-482F097F2049.jpegJust arrived, the missing LinQ....lost these past few days in the snows of Scotland.

Am not aiming to replace the Extreme but bought this to provide me with a source with spdif / aes output options with which to develop a new range of digital cables with. More anon.
 
LinQ is now set up and percolating nicely via i2s using my own ethernet cable, an earlier version of which Peter Katsoolis praised enthusiastically in his La Diva / xHD review.

To start with the spdif development cycle, I have made up a present model cable (green) as a reference and you can see it on the cooker below with two prototypes based on my usb cable design. One of these is unscreened and the other one is fully shielded.

Will do some listening tests at the weekend after they have had an opportunity to break in. If they show promise, then further tweaking and plug choices will follow before final voicing / user testing.2FCFF4F3-6362-47FC-8752-35C7F7371058.jpeg
 
As my former preferred bnc plug from Atlas is no longer available with set screw terminations which was an integrated part of my original spdif design, I’m going to put these bad boys from Oyaide through their paces. Very impressive build quality with solid silver hotpin.

E92A5049-BCEC-4351-9604-C532F621647B.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: AngeloVRA
Did my cable shoot out and the results were interesting. The differences between the top three were fairly small but all these were a way ahead of the last place one

1) shielded new
2) old model
3) i2s with Sablon ethernet
4) unshielded new

Next step is to try a couple more tweaks on #1 and then a bnc iteration which I expect to pull further ahead.

The elephant in the room however is whether the usb cable would now benefit from shielding the data lines as the difference above was quite significant...
 
  • Like
Reactions: MJD Michigan
I finally got around to fitting the the lovely Oyaide bnc plugs to the proto cable. From cold they have a little more air and low level detail than the klei rca version but will need some burn in time to show their full potential. For my next trick, a Bocchino rca prototype will be rustled up...

10A1527A-062A-483A-ACB2-58C21ED18B59.jpeg
 
As threatened, the Bocchino rca version. Straight off the cooker, it is a step up over the KLEI option with greater nuance, liquidity and tonality. Roughly equivalent overall now to the Oyaide silver bnc but with with a more midstage presentation. It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves over the weekend left on repeat.

1E35FF6C-652F-4A86-9477-F944FD5F8450.jpeg
 
Did my cable shoot out and the results were interesting. The differences between the top three were fairly small but all these were a way ahead of the last place one

1) shielded new
2) old model
3) i2s with Sablon ethernet
4) unshielded new

Next step is to try a couple more tweaks on #1 and then a bnc iteration which I expect to pull further ahead.

The elephant in the room however is whether the usb cable would now benefit from shielding the data lines as the difference above was quite significant...
Hey Mark,

So what does the Sablon house recommend for all-out-assault i2s ethernet cable?
 
AES up for comparison this morning and the existing design with oyaide focus xlr plugs ran very close to my best i2s build and ahead of my leading spdif options. Seems there’s some life in the old dog yet. Will make one with Bocchino platinum plugs later to compare - see if it gives the same gains as the rca plugged one did over the soldered KLEi Pure.
 
Last edited:
Interesting feedback Mark...look forward to hearing more and will continue to give some thought to i2s. I also wonder if by any chance you have a 3m-4m RCA IC and a short 0.5m RCA...I am trying to test if part of my buzz if coming from the length of RCA I am using on one side (8m-9m) of the Jensen (1.5m on the other side going into the Sub).
 
No problem...will find a way to test the theory. Thanks.
 
After a month of playing around, I have finally concluded that I took a wrong turn. The original design is excellent and hard to improve on, offering great resolution and balance with more emotional involvement than the slightly more analytical prototype. A bit painful to build but they say suffering is good for the soul.

The eye opener for me is how much the performance has been intensified by the Bocchino platinum plugs (rca and xlr) over the regular KLEi Pure and Oyaide Focus, already respectable options in their own right. The level of emotional draw has really been cranked up, something which many solid state digital systems would benefit from.

Will get the website updated later and prepare some demo samples.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu