Reference Digital Audio 40 - Q. What is special about the QED Reference Digital Audio 40 plugs?
Answer:
The
Reference Digital Audio 40 is made using a cable with a very tight 75 ohm characteristic impedance, however the standard RCA plugs (which have to be used because the domestic S/PDIF connector uses them), are not designed to be 75 ohm. Every other digital cable you can buy from other manufacturers also has to use these non 75 ohm RCA plugs.
Here at QED, we were not happy with this, so we designed an RCA plug which
is 75 ohms, and we use it on the Digital Audio 40 cable which supersedes the original cable. Because there is no impedance mis-match between the cordage and the plugs, you get fewer reflections at the boundaries between plug and cable. This improves digital data transmission and gives up to 1.2 dB less insertion loss, not to mention a huge improvement in jitter performance.