[mix4fix]

Which type of connection has the best sound?

[wushuliu]

I'll bite:
Not optical. Optical is the worst of the three. The other two will be dependent on gear. USB-based gear has come a long in 5 years.

[willswing]

...and sound via HDMI...?

[twitch54]

I'm currently using coaxial, sounds good to me .......

[dB Cooper]

I'm a bits-is-bits guy when it comes to connections. Does the connection method you're using have the needed bandwidth? Just hook it up and hit Play.

[rikhav]

Many would not like me for writing this but after getting right USB cable, rightly tweaking the OS (windows 10) of my music PC and right playback software (roon), I find now that USB us sounding way better for me
Very resolving, no harshness, perfect tonality and deep tuneful bass

My DAC has age old Cmedia USB implementation and neither I use any specialized audio grade device like SOTM as source , so there is still way more scope for Improvement

[FullRangeMan]

In my Dell PC CPU all USB ports are corroded, only 3 are yet operating poorly, this CPU was made in China.

[FullRangeMan]

double post

[Branson4020]

I'm a bits-is-bits guy when it comes to connections. Does the connection method you're using have the needed bandwidth? Just hook it up and hit Play.

Me too.   

[Stu Pitt]

It really all depends on the gear - what’s feeding the DAC and the DAC itself. And the cable to a lesser extent. All connections have their pros and cons.

Optical has higher jitter, messing with the sound. But its claim to fame is there’s no electrical connection, so no electrical noise will be transmitted. If you’ve got a noisy component, this can very well be the way to go.

Coax has lower jitter. But it can transmit electrical noise. If you’ve got a component that’s well designed to ensure it’s not noisy, coax is the way to go.

USB into DACs is better than it was. DACs have done a better job of isolating noise coming through USB than they have in the past. And USB input chips have gotten better with asynchronous, reclocking, etc.

There’s really no “all things being equal” argument because that’s practically impossible to do. They use different input chips (or whatever they’re called), so they can be implemented differently.

My Rega DAC is almost 8 years old. The USB input doesn’t do high res. I’m not sure about the toslink. The coax does. With redbook, the coax sounds better than the USB. That doesn’t mean coax is inherently better in every DAC; it just means it sounds better in my DAC being fed by whatever is feeding it. But here’s the rub: my laptop doesn’t have optical nor coax outputs. I just have USB. So my comparisons between coax, USB and optical aren’t exactly apples to apples. Optical was fed from my Apple TV gen 1; USB directly from my laptop; coax from a DVD player and most recently a Schiit Eitr which converts USB to coax. Keeping that in mind, it’s impossible to say if it’s the format itself or what’s feeding it.

I don’t know how anyone can definitively say one format is inherently better than another. It’s practically impossible to make everything the same and test them side by side. That doesn’t mean one doesn’t sound better than the others under their individual circumstances though. Try the various formats and go with what sounds best. No point on dwelling on which is better without trying them in your system.

[rollo]

I'll bite:
Not optical. Optical is the worst of the three. The other two will be dependent on gear. USB-based gear has come a long in 5 years.

   Agree 100%. For me so far nothing has beat the I2S [ Ethernet ] connection. With USB from server to DAC a cable with separated power line was a huge improvement.


charles

[Freo-1]

I'm a bits-is-bits guy when it comes to connections. Does the connection method you're using have the needed bandwidth? Just hook it up and hit Play.

Used to think that, but no more.  Recently acquired a dedicated CD/SACD transport (Mcintosh MCT80) to pair up with the D150 preamp.  There is a significant difference of sound quality with CD's using this over using an Oppo BDP 105 as a transport, as an example.  No harshness, high frequency fatigue, etc. is noticed using the MCT80.  The clarity is slightly better as well. 


SACD is incredible with this combo.  The MCT80 passes the SACD bitstream to the D150 via a DIN cable.  Have to hear it in person to fully appreciate the difference. 

[Elizabeth]

I also disagree on the claim about Toslink being 'inferior'.
As mentioned, all depends on the circumstances.
I use a Lifatec Toslink glass fiber cable. Highly recommended.

[FullRangeMan]

They are not inferior per se, for data link it may be good, he mean say for home audio coaxial is know have a bettersound than Toslink, since the 1990s I read audio reviews saying it.

[gefski]

I'm with @Stu Pitt. It depends hugely on implementation. I certainly squandered enough $ for years trying to achieve file delivery via USB (outboard USB receivers, decrapifiers, etc) that was worthy of a good dac's capabilities. Went Dante Ethernet in 2016 and am still VERY happy.

Make sure the source is optimized for audio as well.

[Stu Pitt]

They are not inferior per se, for data link it may be good, he mean say for home audio coaxial is know have a bettersound than Toslink, since the 1990s I read audio reviews saying it.

Reviews are other people’s gear, other people’s rooms, other people’s music, and other people’s ears. Hook up a component that generates a lot of noise or has grounding issues, and toslink will easily beat it. Get a crappy coax cable that’s not shielded well, and toslink will beat it. Get both coming to and from good components that have implemented the connections right, and using good cables, and then coax will usually do a better job.

I had coax going from a cable TV box to my DAC for a short amount of time. It sounded pretty bad. Switched to toslink, and problem solved. It wasn’t hifi by any means, but I wasn’t expecting much from Seinfeld episodes and college basketball games’ audio. But I was expecting clean sound.

And yes, hifi manufacturing doesn’t automatically guarantee clean and noise free coax output. It should, but it doesn’t. Try the various connections and trust your own ears.

[ssglx]

I also use Lifatec glass toslink with good results from my AppleTV. I've read that there will be more jitter with toslink, but it sure sounds pretty wonderful in my mid-fi system.

[poseidonsvoice]

Germane to this discussion is that toslink (= Toshibalink) should have audible superiority due to galvanic isolation, being of optical design and hence minimization of noise. But like others have said implementation counts.

See here and scroll to 7:00, then listen until the end of the interview:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fycJhwZlWV8

All that being said, I am happily leaving the USB rat race/cable race/streamer race at the moment and fully endorsing Ethernet and HDMI based I2S. Simpler is better in my view when it comes to the digital input. And FPGA based platforms have my interest, who wants to replace their dac every year?

Best,
Anand.

[MttBsh]

I was having problems with my Yggdrasil DAC clicking and losing the signal for a few seconds each time my thermostat-controlled gas fireplace came on, which this time of year is every few minutes. My source is a Sonore Microrendu, which outputs USB which in turn feeds a Schitt Eitr (USB to SPDIF converter). Turns out the culprit was the Wywires coax going from the Eitr to my Yggy.  I had an extra pair of Zenwave D4 interconnects, so earlier this week I tried one of those in place of the coax. Not only did it solve the signal interruption to my DAC, it also produced a deeper, cleaner, more resolved sound.

I hadn't been aware that one could use an interconnect in place of a coax cable, the Zenwave D4 is better in every way than the coax it replaced, I don't plan to ever use coax again. Maybe there are better quality coax cables out there, but I'm guessing a high quality interconnect will always beat it.     

[srb]

Germane to this discussion is that toslink (= Toshibalink) should have audible superiority due to galvanic isolation, being of optical design and hence minimization of noise.

TOSLINK should have audible inferiority to coax because (a) TOSLINK imposes another layer of dual signal conversion (converting electrical to optical S/PDIF at the transmitter then converting optical back to electrical at the receiver and (b) the majority of optical interfaces measure significantly (and in some cases massively) higher jitter.

Subjectively listening without measurements revealed to me that coax sounded better than optical in every component I tried, except for one inexpensive DVD player where I couldn't detect any difference.

If noise is present in a coax S/PDIF connection, then TOSLINK will obviously be superior, but noise is somewhat rare with a decent quality component and coax S/PDIF cable.  Otherwise coax sounds clearer and more focused to me than TOSLINK.