Coaxial or optical?
Jonas
I have noticed that this discussion has been up before, but they never seem
to lead anywhere?=)
I had an optical cable before and it worked fine. However, my brother "took"
it and a friend of mine had one coaxial cable that I borrowed and I think
the sound is as good as it was with the optical cable (even though we bought
a new budget DVD player).
Am I right that if you don´t have speakers and DVD worth thousands of $$$,
it doesn´t matter whether you use an optical or coaxial?
Or can there be huge differences?
Jonas
Glyn
> I had an optical cable before and it worked fine. However, my brother
> "took" it and a friend of mine had one coaxial cable that I borrowed
> and I think the sound is as good as it was with the optical cable
> (even though we bought a new budget DVD player).
>
> Am I right that if you don´t have speakers and DVD worth thousands of
> $$$, it doesn´t matter whether you use an optical or coaxial?
Dead right, you're only trying to transmit a bunch of 1's and 0's whilst
losing as few as possible. Metal wires can do this quite easily, as can
glass fibres with an led shining down them. Could be argued that optical
is less good because it has to convert electrical to light and back and
there's more opportunity to go wrong. Could be argued that optical is
less good because it will snap or become lossy in tight corners. Could
be argued that coaxial is less good because it's not as "21st century".
Could be argued a whole bunch of pros and cons for each if you read up
on the science, but for practical purposes over short distances with low
or mid-range kit, it doesn't matter !!!
>
> Or can there be huge differences?
There can be huge differences when you're told that one is one type and
price A and the other is one type and price B. You might hear all kinds
of differences if you are expecting to!
What I'd suggest is stick to coaxial if it's cheaper. You don't need a
coaxial 'digital audio' cable necessarily, personally mine was packaged
up as a high quality video cable, but was on special offer and so 30%
cheaper than a similar quality audio cable from the same company. DVD is
a massive growth market and everyone wants coaxial digital audio cable,
so they are often more expensive than those marketed as composite video
cables!
Before you go to the shops, see if you have any old phono audio cable
around (you know, the stuff that comes with a red and a white/black
phono socket at each end, like you'd connect a CD player to an amp
with). Hmm, it's made of wire and has the end connectors your kit needs.
Eureka, it works!
To be honest it doesn't sound as good to use a cheap 'normal' phono as
one designed for digital with the right ohm value. But have a listen
first before you spend £20 or so on the 'right' cable - depending on
your setup you may not be able to hear the losses.
--
Glyn
Guy Dawson
cable quality than analogue which is not a affected as many people think.
I remember a WWW site where they used a coat hanger as a coax lead without
a problem!
--
Guy
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Guy Dawson @ SMTP - 3...@cuillin.org.uk // ICBM - 6.15.16W 57.12.23N 986M
4.4>5.4 4.4>5.4 4.4>5.4 The Reality Check's in the Post! 4.4>5.4 4.4>5.4
Andy Sinclair
Both cables will give identical performance when used for DVD.
Here's a quote from a company who know what they're talking about:
"If your system components allow you to choose between two types of
digital connector, note that both have identical audio performance."
from http://www.dolby.co.uk/ht/Guide.HomeTheater.0110.html
The only people who claim a difference are companies who sell the
cables, and HiFi mags who rely on adverts from cable companies.
Andy
Gav
Affirmative. Coax is usually preferable simply on grounds of price
as those 'TOSlink' cables cost mucho dinero.
> Or can there be huge differences?
Certainly some golden-eared audiophile types claim to be able to
hear a difference (they even claim to hear differences between
different BRANDS of digital interconnect) but no-one has ever proved
it in a 'double blind' test to the best of my knowledge. Bear in mind
that many of these same people also claim to be able to hear an
improvement as speaker cable 'burns in' and will tell you that a $1000
silver power cable to carry the electricity the last metre from your
wall socket to your CD player (never mind the many kilometers of
cabling it had to travel through to get from the power station to the
socket!!!) will make all the difference to the sound of your system.
Gav
Ian Middleton
remove earth loops.
A couple of years (5) ago I designed sonar systems that used state of the
art (in those days) 24bit 96KHz sampling (as used in high end audio now) and
the signals are transmitted between the equiplemt racks using plastic fibre
(or transformer isolated coax) so as to prevent earthloops. If connected
using "normal" coax it was quite interesting to observe the 50Hz noise
appear, despite taking the utmost care in system design. Whether this 50Hz
noise is audible is another matter.
One problem with optical is jitter. The conversion of electical to optical
and back introduces clock jitter (as compared to direct coax) in the final
output DAC which certainly degraded the output, ie a single frequency tone
output now has a slight spread. This was certainly measurable with a
frequency analyser, though whether again it could be heard is another
matter.
So you takes your choice possible 50Hz hum with coax of clock jiter with
optical.
"Gav" <gavs_...@swissonline.ch> wrote in message
news:3bf1057d.03010...@posting.google.com...
Andy Sinclair
>One problem with optical is jitter. The conversion of electical to optical
>and back introduces clock jitter (as compared to direct coax) in the final
>output DAC which certainly degraded the output, ie a single frequency tone
>output now has a slight spread. This was certainly measurable with a
>frequency analyser, though whether again it could be heard is another
>matter.
between a DVD player an amp.
The data from a DVD player is reclocked by the amp.
The problem of jitter is only relevant for connecting up a CD player.
Andy
Mark A
>
> You guys are all forgetting the major reason for going to optical is
> with optical.
None of which takes into account the error correction built into the
D-A convertors, or other circuitry.
I'd keep with coax, it's a more robust cable. Simple as that.
Regards
Mark
Newsgroup Monkey©
> "Jonas" <jonas...@swipnet.se> wrote in message
> news:<avd7md$ek14g$1...@ID-36761.news.dfncis.de>...
>> Hi!
>>
>> I have noticed that this discussion has been up before, but they
>> never seem to lead anywhere?=)
>>
>
> Affirmative. Coax is usually preferable simply on grounds of price
> as those 'TOSlink' cables cost mucho dinero.
>
>
There's not actually that much in the price either. You can buy an optical
cable for £3.50 from Homebase and as was pointed out, there isn't really
that much of a difference in quality between that and a more expensive one.
Stu
Gav
> You guys are all forgetting the major reason for going to optical is to
> remove earth loops.
> So you takes your choice possible 50Hz hum with coax of clock jiter with
> optical.
How would you get an earth loop hum through a digital connection?
Gav
Guy Dawson
Gav wrote:
> How would you get an earth loop hum through a digital connection?
If it's coax then there's an electrical (ie copper) link between the
two units. Current (other than that for the digital signal) flows down
this link and produces an analogue hum. It's seperate from the digital
signal and just shared the same cable.
It may be happening throug the out shield rather than the inner connector.
Guy
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Guy Dawson I.T. Manager Crossflight Ltd
gn...@crossflight.co.uk
Ian Middleton
professional equivalent of digital coax (spdf pro ?) is transformer coupled
to prevent earth loops.
"Guy Dawson" <gn...@crossflight.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3E1C41F6...@crossflight.co.uk...