I had the good fortune to try out one of these cables, and I can say that it really is worth every penny. The only bad thing I can say is that it did take me a few tries to get it plugged in the right direction, but that wasn't too bad. I immediately noticed that my sound quality was much clearer and the bass was much more vibrant. I even broke out my oscilloscope and confirmed that the bits transmitted through this cable have much more clearly-defined edges than any standard ethernet cable; you can really tell how crisp the ones and zeroes are. They also had twice the amplitude; I was truly amazed that Denon was able to cram so much bit amplitude into an ethernet cable.
I hope that they decide to sell a 6'-long version of this cable that is certified for us with PCs, as I would love to get this sort of clarity on my normal network traffic. Until then, I'll have to settle for chaining a few of these together.
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I have never seen such hype in all my life. Digital is Digital, there is no such thing as to the quality of the ones and zeros getting through. The only necessary element is that the connection is clean enough to have them get through. I have bought three receivers from Denon and I am sorry to see someone I trusted turn to lies and deceit. I will never do business with them again nor should you. I would consider this cable only if you can buy it used for $5.00 because that's all it's worth.
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This is an amazing cable, and you can really hear the difference. Unfortunately, Denon doesn't tell you this but you actually need 4 of these cables: the first handles incoming 1s, the second handles outgoing 1s, the third handles incoming 0s and the fourth handles incoming 0s. I tried with just one cable but it sounded awful - but once I spent $2000 on 4 of these cables, and then had a guy splice them together, my MP3s sounded AWSOME!
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It's unfortunate that a company would sell a piece of CAT-5E for this much money. There are no such things as pristine 0's and 1's. I understand the 'audiophile' philosophy, but this is ridiculous. Digital signals do not get better with gold plating, or by paying enormous amounts of money. Digital signals are digital signals.
CAT-5 cables also relies on balanced lines which means that the signal is transmitted down the twisted pairs as inverses of each other. This technique effectively cancels out interference over CAT-5E without the $495 markup.
If you are looking for a "AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable", buy yourself a 2 meter CAT-5E cable and pocket the rest.
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You people are crazy. Listen to your ears (they are the things under your hair). I was going to buy the monster cable rca cables for my quadrophonic speaker setup & 8-track deck - until I saw these. For significantly less than I was willing to spend, I gained four twisted pairs of this high-intensity wire. So I stripped the cat5 connector off, and soldered on regular rca plugs. Yes! Air Supply has rarely sounded so sweet! Sure, it seems a little dumb for network cable, but do what I did - it's super thrifty and cheap! The ladies will never notice the difference, I promise. The only thing I might do to make it even better in the future: when I hooked it up to an o-scope, the signal made all these sine-wave looking things - I think I might set up some kind of circuit to cut this down to a straight horizontal line, and truly experience the ultimate sonic bliss that is unadultured DC power!
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Someone broke into my house and they threatened me with a gun. When I said that I could prove that using better copper for a digital connection makes the audio sent over it sound better they didn't beleive me.
I made a deal with them to spare my life if it was true.
I hooked my Denon 3808CI with my Denon DVD player with HDMI and it sounded ok. Being an audiophile I know this is low-quality sound. I only spent 100 bucks on that 3 foot cable! Hah!
Then I hooked up the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable and the would-be robber had to admit that I had beaten reason and logic with my $500 ethernet cable.
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As a member of the board of a certain marketing firm hired to promote a certain digital cable, I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions.
First of all, to you people talking about "zeros and ones", and "on and offs". Are you insane? I hate to burst your bubble, but music is comprised of something called "notes", often organized into "chords", and expressed by playing "instruments", and singing "vocals". Numbers are for counting.
You may be interested to know that this entire project began because we were searching for a way to get "Hootie and the Blowfish" to sound better. We spent untold hours and hours downloading and playing this band through several vehicles, only to find that this inevitably resulted in an unnatural urge to hit ourselves in the head with a hammer, over and over again. This is called "Market Research".
Finally, when we were forced to agree that there was no technology on earth that could make "Hootie and the Blowfish" sound better, we resorted to a complicated marketing strategy called "Let's make it more expensive". And then someone raised their hand, and said,"Let's make it WAY more expensive". And that person is our new Vice President.
So we did, and do you know what? Listening to "Hootie and the Blowfish" through our cable actually does make the band sound better now. And do you know why?
Because even that is better than saying you wasted $500.00 on a cable.
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Digital cables made up of unshielded twisted pairs (better known as UTP) are designed to cancel their own interference WITHOUT NEEDING SHIELDING of any kind. This is by design, to save on manufacturing costs and increase potential throughput. In other words, with this type of cable, it's all about practicality and cheapness of manufacturing cost. This product is a textbook example of a snake-oil product. If you feel inclined to buy one, please also consider buying a certain bridge I have for sale in the Brooklyn region.
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I can't believe a product like this ever made it to market. This is simply a normal cat 5 or cat 6 STP (shielded twisted pair) cable. You can buy similar cables for $5-$10 at most. I can make my own for about $1...10 cents a foot for raw cable and 25 cents each for the end connectors. The quality will be exactly the same because a digital cable is a digital cable. Either you get the signal or you don't.
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You would be better off purchasing a bridge in Brooklyn, than buying this cable. Actually, if the former sounds appealing to you, let me know. I know a guy...
Digital signals by definition are as steady stream of 1's and 0's. Any cable that transmits those ones and zero's at ALL is indistinguishable from any other such cable. There is no difference in the "purity" of a 1 or a 0. It is either one or the other, you can't have a digital signal that transmits *almost* a 1.
Search Amazon for any standard Cat-5 cable and you'll save yourself $495 on a product that will be *just* as good as this one. Give the difference to charity or spend it on something truly worthwhile. Needless to say, I'll be very careful to never purchase any Denon products. They really should be ashamed of themselves.
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