Stealth Varidig V16-T Select Digital Cable

Stealth Varidig V16 Standard Digital Cable

$2,110.00

Connector S/PDIF AES/EBU

Length 0.6 m 1.0 m 1.5 m 2.0 m

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Varidig (from 'variable digital') is Stealth's patent-pending digital cable technology. Ordinary RCA connectors are well below 75 ohms, so a conventional cable creates impedance mismatches at each end that reflect part of the signal back and forth along the cable. Varidig shapes its porous Teflon dielectric to be thicker in the middle and thinner at the ends, holding the correct impedance across the whole cable, connectors included. Stealth hears the result as a quieter background, cleaner sound and better focus and attack, with no sonic dependence on length. V16 is the 2016 revision.

The V16-T Select is the pick of each production batch. Every cable has tolerances, and some measure better than others; Stealth builds candidates from hand-selected parts, measures them before and after termination, and keeps only the best for Select. It also carries the tuning collar.

Construction

Varidig principle: porous Teflon dielectric that is thicker in the middle of the cable than at the ends, with conductors that taper towards the terminations
Holds the correct characteristic impedance across the whole cable including connectors (75 ohms S/PDIF, 110 ohms AES/EBU), greatly reducing signal reflections
Twisting pitch varies along the length to break up internal resonances
Dielectric: porous Teflon, dielectric constant about 1.4 versus 2.0-2.2 for solid PTFE
Select grading: hand-picked connectors and wire; candidate cables are measured before termination and only the best, usually two to five in ten, are chosen, then re-measured after assembly. Stealth's proprietary tests include characteristic impedance, high-frequency electrical damping, lost packets in both directions and common-mode rejection
Tuning collar: a sliding ferromagnetic collar moved along the cable while listening; at the right spot the sound comes into focus, much like a lens. The best position differs for every pair of components, finding it can take an evening, and a poorly placed collar sounds worse than none.