Kubala-Sosna Elation! Digital Coaxial SPDIF Cables

A digital cable is a transmission line. Done poorly, it forces the DAC to spend its energy correcting for jitter and timing errors that should never have arrived. Done well, it lets the DAC do what it was designed to do — recover the music. Kubala-Sosna offers digital cables in five formats across the line: AES/EBU (DAE) for studio-style balanced digital, S/PDIF coaxial (DCX) for the most common single-ended digital link, USB for direct computer-to-DAC and streamer-to-DAC connections, Ethernet (LAN) for networked playback chains, and a dedicated 50Ω coaxial cable available only at the Realization tier for the most demanding clock and digital links. Each is offered at the tiers where K-S has engineered the cable to a level the digital chain at that price point can actually use.

Elation! is the line's most awarded cable. It has won Positive Feedback Brutus Awards in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2016 across power, S/PDIF digital, Ethernet, and the full series, plus The Absolute Sound 2015 Super AV Award for the power cable. Alma's own product page calls it “our best — and quite probably — the best.” The full complement is in this tier: analog interconnects, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, DIN-RCA, DIN-XLR, USB on request, Ethernet, speaker, power. The right customer is the listener at reference-component level who wants the K-S architecture at full expression. The step-up to Realization is the OptimiZ4 generation.

Elation! as the S/PDIF coaxial cable is one of the configurations the Elation! line earned its Brutus Award reputation on — the OptimiZ3 architecture in the most common digital link in serious two-channel. This is the 75-ohm coaxial cable for a system whose transport or streamer and DAC are both at reference level, where the listener has heard what Emotion does in this position and wants the OptimiZ3 step. The complete Elation! digital complement — S/PDIF, AES/EBU, USB on request, Ethernet — is available in this tier; the listener who chooses Elation! S/PDIF often runs the digital chain top-to-bottom in the same architecture, which is exactly what the press attention on the Elation! line over more than a decade reflects.

Series: OptimiZ3™

Architecture: RevolutionZ™

Configuration options: S/PDIF coaxial (DCX) — single-ended digital, 75 ohm

Termination options: RCA

Length range: 1.0m to 3.0m in 0.5m increments

Pricing formula: First-meter price plus per-additional-meter rate

Made in USA — Kubala-Sosna Research, East Hanover, NJ

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