I recently visited a friend's setup which consist of Beocentre 2 + Beosystem 3 + 2 Beolab 9s and Beolab 8000s. He uses an Audioquest Eagle Eye cable (powered) between the Beocentre 2 and Beosystem 3 for digital audio in surround setting. He is convinced that there has been sound improvement since it was installed.

 I am just wondering whether there is any need for it. I have friends with non-B&O set up that uses audiophile cables costing nearly as much as the speakers themselves...but given the Beolabs have amplifiers in them, does a cable like the audioquest one offers any real benefit? (since the beolabs are not driving by the BS3 as it does not act as an amplifier)

I have to say the sound was impressive but how much more if was attributed to the cable itself is a bit hard to justify the cost involved. I know this is a very person topic since some people may appreciate the difference whilst others may not (like red wine :p).

I have a pair of 5s in my setup, would the cable enhance the already great sound coming from them in a surround setup?

Sorry for being flippant - I assumed this would be leapt upon by a stream of respondants given the history on the site of "cable" debates.

If I understand you correctly then the cable you are referring to is being used for digital signal transmission between the BeoCentre 2 and the BeoSystem 3. If this is the case then there is absolutely nothing to be gained by using rediculously expensive link cables as they provide no additional benefit. In a digital system the data  will either be received correctly (in which case there is nothing you can do to "polish" it further) or there will be data errors. In this case it is just as likely the the Most Significant Bit is corrupted as it is the Least Siginificant Bit. This being the case any transmission problems wouldn't just "add noise" or "slight distortion" or "phase delay" - they would be just as likely to create hugh click or crack-like noises..

If you are driving your BL5's digitally and they sound good it tells me the spdif link is fine and nothing you can do with cables will improve it.

B&O do test cables and the ones supplied are in their opinion, and the opinion of the board of 'Golden Ears' that they use for listening tests morethan up to the job.

However if you feel that special cables improve the sound for you, and that the expense is worth it, that is fine. I would suggest a blind A/B/X test though - try one, try the other and then try one or the other and see if you can tell which it is. You need a sceptic friend to do the swapping! On the whole, blind trials reveal that most people cannot tell the difference.

Personally, I've found there is a difference between speaker cables when driving passive speakers with external amps, or the cables between a record deck and the pre-amp. However, I am yet to hear an improvement when using line level cables!

Either way, I feel the money is better spent on CDs and DVDs and records, as these are by far the most important part of any HiFi/AV system!

The latest in cable magic: QUANTUM CABLES!!! The TESLA SERIES!!!

http://www.synergisticresearch.com/ 

There are many ways of separating people from their money in high-end HiFi ...

Digital is digital - as long as the transfer cable is of the correct grade (usually 75Ohms) and there's a means of defeating potential jitter in the reproduction (usually using a wordclock or PPL), then you can't really improve upon the transfer of the data.

There's lots of really entertaining information about how extremely cheap cables outdo superexpensive ones. Audioholics have made many tests of this, worth looking into.

In high-end HiFi, the laws of electronics suddenly enter the twilight zone, where everything is possible.