Is a S/PDIF cable the same a phono?

[Sovereign]

This may be a daft question, but is a S/PDIF cable the same as a normal Phono/RCA cable ?
Thanks

[howardc1951]

From my personal experience: I was testing various coax interconnects to see which was best between a media player and a DAC and decided to try a standard phono to phono interconnect. The result was that it didn't work and afterwards the coax output on the media player I was using didn't work at all. It could of course be coincidence or perhaps I damaged the player's output. Just be careful!

[wallace]

This may be a daft question, but is a S/PDIF cable the same as a normal Phono/RCA cable ?
Thanks

Yes,or at least it is in my system.I am sure you would have got many pages saying no ,on several other forums by now.

[ninetynine]

Will it work? How technical do you want to get?

S/PDIF is designed to meet IEC61937 and this calls for 75 ohm termination. You try finding a phono connector with 75 ohm characteristics as the dimensions of the connector do not allow true matching (Canare may be the closest phono available).

However allowing for the signal bandwidth and the wavelength over a short cable run the S/PDIF signal may not be affected enough to matter in most cases.

[Sovereign]

Thanks for your help chaps, I have a S/PDIF I am wanting to try out, I'll give it a go tonight.

[Yomanze]

This may be a daft question, but is a S/PDIF cable the same as a normal Phono/RCA cable ?
Thanks

Some normal phono/RCA cables (like Mark Grant) uses 75ohm impedance cable, but then others are 50ohm. I am of the school that you should have as close to a match of 75ohm as possible, and that signal reflections & impedance mismatches (especially with short cables) do impact the sound e.g. increased jitter. I did try a Gotham interconnect as an SPDIF cable & it wasn't as good as my properly specced Belden cable.