Many posters here at ST are firm believers in the benefits of an outboard D/A converter to improve the sound of their CD players. I am no exception to that belief, as I'm quite satisfied with the improvement the Adcom GDA-600 D/A converter made when I added it to my GCD-600 CD player.

When I bought the converter from Adcom (the VP was a friend of mine), I was strongly advised as to the unit being "cable sensitive." As such, I've purchased a number of different digital coax cables, and have often stated that my preference of all was the D-60 "Illuminati" cable, currently sold by Kimber Cable. I have also stated that $230 for a 1/2 meter cable is a bit ridiculous.

That cable developed an intermittent short, and as such, I had to buy something else. As I was mightily impressed with Monster Cable's HDMI cables, I checked them out again, and found their Z-Series Z-200d 1 meter coax cable available at several online retailers for $79.95.

I was looking forward to receiving the cable, and it arrived today. While I certainly haven't had the time to go through all of my favorite CD-s out of my collection of well over 1,600 of them, I have to say that those I've listened to thus far sound very, very much better than they ever did - even when the Illuminati cable was working properly.

What are the differences? Well, here are a few:

Greatly improved imaging
Deeper and cleaner bass
"sweeter" strings
"throatier" brass
Much, much greater dynamic range - when music gets louder, it's much louder, at the same volume setting as previously used.
And, yes, there are certain instruments I didn't hear before that are very obvious now.

And that's only after listening to a bunch of discs over an hour and a half or so!

Monster Cable often gets snubbed by high-end periodicals, probably because they sell to the unwashed masses through big-box stores like Circuit City. That's unfortunate, because this cable, at a fraction of the cost of the Illuminati, simply blows it away in every respect imaginable.

Can you tell I like this cable?

when I added it to my GCD-600 CD player.

When I bought the converter from Adcom (the VP was a friend of mine), I was strongly advised as to the unit being "cable sensitive." As such, I've purchased a number of different digital coax cables, and have often stated that my preference of all was the D-60 "Illuminati" cable, currently sold by Kimber Cable. I have also stated that $230 for a 1/2 meter cable is a bit ridiculous.

Monster Cable often gets snubbed by high-end periodicals, probably because they sell to the unwashed masses through big-box stores like Circuit City. That's unfortunate, because this cable, at a fraction of the cost of the Illuminati, simply blows it away in every respect imaginable.

Can you tell I like this cable?

I agree with these points at different levels. Monster Cable (Noel Lee) jumped on an opportunity to cash in back in the mid 80's and bless his soul. He brought about a much needed sonic revelation in cable design. Of course he was not alone as Bill Low of then "livewire" fame now called Audioquest introduced some modestly priced though sonically satisfying wire.

I suggest you acquire a meter of Audioquest VDM-5 and hook that between your DAC and Cd... then call me back. Trust me on this one.... really trust me.

That's not too likely. At least not this quickly, as that 1 meter cable costs a "mere" $225. This Monster Z-Series cable cost me only $79.95, and sounds better than the Illuminati by a considerable margin. When I have a few hundred dollars lying around, I'll give the Audioquest a try.

My experience with Audioquest is very much a mixed bag. My first digital/coax cable for my D/A converter was an Audioquest, and while it worked, it didn't work as well as a less expensive cable from Monster (not the Z-Series). Also, I purchased Audioquest "Crystal" speaker wire many years back to replace "ordinary" Monster cable speaker cable, and the sound was noticeably worse: while a good deal louder, it was much, much harsher. After a while the harshness subsided, but never went away. The Z-Series Monster speaker wire I replaced it with, on the other hand, sounded just wonderful.

I trust your judgement, but just don't wish to spend that much yet on a mere 1 meter of cable. Still, thanks.