AudioQuest Cinnamon Digital Coax Cable – .75 Meter

Aunque un poco caro, es un buen producto, a mi me ha dado buen resultado, me gusta.

I upgraded form optical cables to coaxial and first used my cheap Media Bridge cable which sounded too harsh. Since I didn’t have the time to order a bunch of high-end stuff and go through the A/B testing roller coaster, I ordered these AudioQuest Cinnamon digital coax cables. These cables are not the best you can find for your money, but they are indeed decent sounding. I could immediately hear some improvements over my cheap coax cable, and they got even better with a little breaking-in time. Now that I’ve seen improvement with these Cinnamon coax cable, I will order AQ Carbon, DH Labs D-750, and WireWorld UltraViolet, and I will A/B test all three and update my review when I get some time. I deducted one star here for the price, since WW basically has the same construction and costs less, but higher price is a common trend with AQ products. Other than price, you won’t regret getting this cable if you have a revealing system and looking in this price range. Just get 1.5m length to avoid reflection jitters. Thanks for reading and YMMV.

Some technical notes:
* SPDIF is a digital transfer protocol that unfortunately is prone to having jitters because of clock-timing errors.
* SPDIF can be transferred over Optical Cables via TOSLINK or over Coaxial Cables.
* Optical Cables have more jitter than coax. I tried a bunch of different optical cables, and coax sounded better even my cheap coax.
* Coax is supposed to have 75ohm impedance across the cable length, but RCA end plugs are not 75ohms by design, and measuring impedance requires dedicated hardware. The matching 75ohm impedance is critical for reducing jitter and timing errors, but the only company out of the three that I mentioned earlier that claims they have true 75ohm RCA end plugs is DH Labs.
* Empirical Audio had an article that scientifically proved the sweet length for Coaxial cable is about 1.5m. This length will reduce the reflection jitter, because reflection data will arrive at a later time than the audio has already been processed at the receiving end. You can look it up, the title is “S/PDIF: Does Coaxial Digital Cable Length Matter?”

*** Update ***

I tried WireWorld UltraViolet, Audio Quest Cinnamon, Audio Quest Carbon, and DH Labs D-750 all in the same system and listened to same tracks over and over again. It wasn’t even a reference system, just my Apple TV 4K connected via HDMI to Sony OLED, which outputted PCM over HDMI ARC port to a digital coax converter connected to Hegel H190 coax port. My speakers are Focal Electra 1008BE2 with beryllium tweeters. In theory, this normal setup should not have any sonic difference based on different coax cable, but it does! I could clearly hear differences between all of the cables. In a blind test, I probably will be having a hard time picking WW and Cinnamon apart, but Carbon has a distinctive sound that you can pick immediately. So here are my personal observations regarding each cable:

4- WireWord Ultraviolet: very good sounding cable for the price, but once you try better cables, you realize the upper frequencies are a little muffled and the dynamic range is a bit compressed.

3- Audio Quest Cinnamon: best cable for the money, period. Sounds very natural and pleasing, but again, lacks a bit of detail of the higher end cousins. The low end frequencies are very nice and blended too.

2- Audio Quest Carbon: it was very bright and brittle at first, but got significantly better after 15 hours. The RCA connector is pure silver directly hanging over copper wire, so it should eliminitate the impedance mismatch that is common in RCA connectors. The cable is also well made with very nice jacket and finish. Sound quality is very revealing and analytical. It’s the only cable that has that 3D sound effect. High frequencies have a spike, and it goes lower than other cables. However, I feel the sub frequencies more with my body than hearing them. It’s either that the middle sub frequencies are subdued or they’re masked, but whatever the reason, this cable has the most character of them all. I still have mixed feelings whether I like it or not, but it sure is different. I think it’s worth the money if you like the sound, but it’s hard to beat the value of Cinnamon. If you can afford Carbon, go for it.

1- DH Labs D-750 is the only cable that claims it has true 75ohm RCA plugs. In other cables, even if the cable is 75ohm, the RCA plugs and soldering will change their impedance. I really like this cable. It’s the most balanced cable in this group, and neither a single frequency stands out nor do I hear any spikes. The bass is full and high frequencies are all there. It has the fullest sound of all these cables. It doesn’t have that 3D sound effect that Audio Quest Carbon produces, but I’m not convinced if that 3D effect is because you hear the right things or it’s a byproduct of some missing or subdued parts. Carbon is a little harder to listen to than the D-750 because sometimes the 3D effects get too distracting. Retail on DH Labs is about 30% less than the Carbon, and with the frequent direct sales from the manufacturer, you can find D-750 for about 40% to 50% less than AQ Carbon. It’s a steal at these sale prices for what you get sonically and also in physical built. My only complain is that D-750 outer jacket is thick and not as flexible as AQ, so I had to be careful with it on the back of my equipment cabinet. Best sound quality in this range and the winner for me. Just remember that manufacturer suggested break-in time is 60 hours, and Empirical Audio article suggests that 1.5m is the sweet spot to avoid reflection jitters in digital coax.

Final thoughts, it’s weird that digital cables introduce coloration to music. I’m still baffled myself, but it’s there. I listened to many pieces of music and watched a couple of movies, but for a reference, try this song on Apple Music: Serpiente by Fernando Milagros. At about 56 seconds in, there’s a high frequency instrument in the background that comes in at about half a second intervals and sounds like “ding… ding… ding… ding…”. WireWorld masked that effect almost completely. AQ Cinnamon rendered a less detailed version of them, and D750 had all the details but did not project them high and up in the room. AQ Carbon throw those ding sounds so strongly that they almost sounded like a spike or burst. If you’ve a bunch of cables around, you can easily conduct your own tests. As for me and my budget, I’ll keep the D-750. Thanks for reading and YMMV.

*** Possible Future Upgrade:
VH Labs has a solid core pure silver 75ohm coaxial cable with silver RCA plugs that they say has the most accurate impedance of all cables. They claim that they even go through the trouble of throwing a lot of the cable away as a waste to make it a true 75ohm at finished lengths. Depend on RCA plugs you choose, they range from 340-410, and they claim it will compete favorably against reference cables in 2K to 3K price range. I don’t know about reference cables, but it should be interesting to compare VH Labs pure silver cable directly with the cables listed above and also the Audio Quest Coffee to see how accurate they are with their claims.

Cable reliant une platine CD Marantz à un ampli Cambridge. Très bonne définition sonore. Je suis sceptique sur l’intérêt des flèches indiquant le sens du branchement. Argument commercial probable …

Another excellent product from audioquest, my whole system has gone from wireworld, cardas, and/or Kimber to all audioquest. While the other stuff is okay all of the audioquest stuff especially the silver plated stuff makes a noticable difference, I’m not saying some huge difference but there is something to it. The improvements I’ve noticed going from other good stuff to audioquest is lower noise floor and improved clarity, no cables do not change the tone of your system unless it is doing something intentionally wrong. A cable should just transmit as much of the signal as possible not alter it, I think this is where audioquest has it right, solid copper that is well shielded and really good connectors. It seems audioquest makes those things a priority instead of fancy braids and geometries and buzz words like OCC copper. I do prefer audioquests silver plated stuff but there digital cables get to expensive to quickly with silver plating but I’m on the look out for a used carbon coaxial cable but for now the cinnamon will have to do lol. I have audioquest rocket 33 speaker cables, diamondback, black mamba ll, and Sydney RCA’s that are upgrades from red rivers and golden gates, I also have some power cables nrg-2 (x2) and nrg-x (x2) and this coaxial cable so I have heard a good amount of there lower to mid level stuff and coming from more expensive stuff from other brands I can only highly recommend audioquest stuff. Hope this helps some who are trying to sift through conflicting info out there on cables, the thing to keep in mind is the only differences you can expect are slight improvement in noise floor and clarity, do not expect to accentuate the mid range or bass because it’s not going to happen anywhere but in your head. One more thing, your speakers and components are more important than spending on cables so get that all sorted first and then start upgrading your cables, if you are having an issue and need a cable to be shielded just upgrade that one cable until you have the rest of your components and speakers sorted.

Flexible cable, high quality build, install and forget. I prefer this over the tops link cable