Question regarding BNC connection of DCS Bridge

@AMP
I have a DCS Bridge (fantastic product btw) and I am connecting it to a Lampizator DAC’s SPDIF input. I recently bought a new 75 ohm BNC cable and the manufacturer also sent me RCA adapters for the BNC connections.

My questions:

  1. Should I use the BNC connection on the DCS? Is it superior / inferior to the SPDIF output?
  2. Is AES/EBU same as BNC? I’ll post the pic of the back side of the Lampizator. It says AES/EBU but I am assuming the connection is same as BNC. Is this correct?

Any thoughts on Using this BNC (on both ends) is superior to adding the RCA adapters and using the SPDIF connections?

.Spdif signal can be sent both through BNC and COAX connectors, but to ensure specification the cable should terminate with BNC connectors and have an impedance of 75Ohm. Exactly the same signal is at the BNC and COAX output.
For me it is a bit better with AES / ABU than with BNC, although the difference may result from other digital cables.

The specification for coaxial SPDIF doesn’t prescribe a BNC connector, but it does state 75 Ω impedance is key to compliance. There’s a school of thought that it’s easier to make 75 Ω BNC connectors that RCA. I’m not enough of an electrical engineer to comment. Wikipedia gives a decent quick overview, where it claims that BNC is in fact for AES unbalanced. Again I’m not qualified to make a judgement. I’d love to read the ISO docs but at £350 a throw they’re not cheap, standards publication is a bit of a racket. This document gets referenced a lot for those of us to mean to pay for the standard.

One definite advantage of BNC is that the cable connection locks so it can’t come loose. An accidental pull on the cable will likely drag your kit with it though. A BNC connector looks safest overall as it’s near guaranteed to have the right impedance. Beware mixing AES and SPDIF inadvertently, there’s a fair voltage difference.

IMHO it’s digital so as long as your cables and connectors are to spec there should be no audible difference although YMMV.

@Roon_Superuser, the BNC connections on the back of the Network bridge are SDIF, not SPDIF .
They are used to connect the Network Bridge to older dCS DAC’s (Scarlatti,Elgar?), Left and Right channel (1,2) and Word-clock. Is my understanding that this type of connection is still very popular in Japan.

I use the RCA SPDIF output to connect to my DAC with a Kiber Kable DV30 (75ohms). Works like a charm :slight_smile:

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