Description
The TUBULUS Ximius i2s cable is our flagship i2s cable and is very ‘analog’ sounding. It’s specifically designed for i2s signal transport and based on high quality pure silver wires.
Each conductor which is used for i2s signal transport consists out of multiple pure silver wires. These multiple silver wires are individually insulated by air. Which is unique for a i2s cable. Air insulation is used because (next to a vacuum) air is the best dielectric.
This air insulation is made possible by our unique Septet Helix Tube Construction which can only be made by hand. With this Septet Helix Tube Construction the silver wires are held firmly into place to prevent the wires from vibrating freely in the air.
To preserve signal integrity the conductors are individually shielded. A special layer ensures a better distance ratio between the shielding and conductors. An overall foil screen and a thick copper braid completes this triple shielding with a 100% coverage and very low resistance.
The silver wires are solid core wires to minimize strand interaction, which is a major source of distortion. With a special thermo-process the silver wires are restructured at a molecular level to reach a quality close to mono crystal silver.
The TUBULUS Ximius i2s cable is terminated with high quality shielded HDMI or RJ45 plugs which are soldered with silver containing solder. All this makes it an unique i2s cable.
The TUBULUS Ximius i2s cable is compatible with all i2s devices and also with the Auralic Lightning Link and Esoteric ES-Link.
NOTE: If a ‘standard’ HDMI or RJ45 cable doesn’t work in your setup a Tubulus i2s will not either. Then you might need a i2s cable with custom pinout.
For custom i2s cables please contact us by email: info@tubulus.net
TUBULUS cables are hand crafted with love, expertise and devotion with no excess decoration or luxury packaging and therefore true value for your money!
WHY BUY A TUBULUS I2S CABLE?
A high end i2s cable may sound like nonsense. After all it’s just 1’s and 0’s it has to transport. Any hdmi cable can do that. But those 1’s and 0’s have to be transported by a bunch of electrons traveling through a wire and electrons don’t know if they are ‘analog’ or ‘digital’. In fact, all electrical signals are analogue.
However, the digital signal is different; it is a pulse train, a square wave instead of a sine. But a perfect square wave doesn’t exist, because transition from one to zero requires time. So there is always a rise/fall time and the edges of the square wave will be rounded. In fact the square wave is a kind of trapezium with rounded edges.
Depending on the quality of the cable, the corners of the square wave will round off to a greater or lesser degree and the “flat” portions of the wave will become uneven as well. Small changes will make it harder for the receiver to detect the exact moment the rise or fall is happening. This will induce jitter. And if the changes become too big, the receiver will not even be able to reconstruct the logical 1’s and 0’s properly.
This is why a high quality i2s cable like the TUBULUS Ximius can make huge improvements in sound quality.
Scott S. –
The Tubulus Ximius i2s cable and Denafrips Gaia have been a game changer, very substantial and meaningful improvement upon an optimized usb setup. The superior OXCO clock in Gaia and Ximius cable have taken my digital performance to a whole new level. Music now flows much like my very nice vinyl/tt system. I’m over ten years into and evolving my streaming setup. The Ximius i2s cable is like the icing on the cake, presenting digital sound quality like everything I’ve ever dreamed of!
Scott S.