Toslink or coax

Charles Calkins · « **on:** 15 Jan 2010, 01:32 am »

Been fooling around with both digital cables today. Using an Oppo 980h player. CD. To my tired old ears coax sounds better to me. SPL is about the same but coax has better detail. Both cables are Monster mid price.

Cheers
Charlie

*Scotty* · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 01:50 am »

Charlie,You might try one of these Glass toslink cables. They might sound a little better depending on whether
or not your coax connection is transformer coupled or not. These glass cables beat the crap out of plastic toslinks. Links below.
http://www.uniqueproductsonline.com/gltodiopca.html
http://www.cablesondemand.com/product/AV-TOSLQGMSMM/URvars/Items/Library/InfoManage/AV-TOSLPROTSW.htm
Scotty

jcoat007 · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 02:07 am »

Quote from: *Scotty* on 15 Jan 2010, 01:50 am

Charlie,You might try one of these Glass toslink cables. They might sound a little better depending on whether
or not your coax connection is transformer coupled or not. These glass cables beat the crap out of plastic toslinks. Links below.
http://www.uniqueproductsonline.com/gltodiopca.html
http://www.cablesondemand.com/product/AV-TOSLQGMSMM/URvars/Items/Library/InfoManage/AV-TOSLPROTSW.htm
Scotty

I own the first of the two links you provided.

The glass is definitely better than the plastic and it's pretty inexpensive.

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 02:21 am »

GEEEEZZZZZEEEEE!!!!

Who would have thunk there was such a difference in toslink cable construction! Not me!! That's for sure.

Cheers
Charlie
P.S.
As good as coax or better?

*Scotty* · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 04:48 am »

I has been my experience that the toslink bettered coax in my system but you need to try it for yourself. You may prefer coax if you are transformer coupled which prevents noise on the ground plane of the transport from contaminating the DAC. The toslink of course has no electrical connections to transmit noise between components.
Scotty

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 05:55 am »

Scotty:

All Greek to me. But I think I'll order their best toslink and coax to compare.

Cheers
Charlie

daddydoom · « **Reply #6 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 10:49 am »

Hey Charles,

If you are looking for a good cable you might try Transparent. I love mine. I use it from my Macabook pro to my dac. Transparent has discontinued this cable and most of their distributors have them at a really good price.

Matt

Wayner · « **Reply #7 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 12:50 pm »

So your saying that the toslink cable is not correctly transferring the little zeros and ones from device to device? Many folks in my neighborhood have their computers hooked up to the internet on fiber-optic lines, and their computers seem to operate without file errors.

Wayner

Crimson · « **Reply #8 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 01:09 pm »

It's not if the ones and zeros reach the interface/dac, but rather the timing of said ones and zeros. Each electrical interface can introduce timing anomalies which translates to jitter. As to whether jitter is audible or not, that's dependent on the system and listener.

Wayner · « **Reply #9 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 01:40 pm »

So then anyone that builds and boasts a "jitter free" device (CD transport, etc) is a fool because the downstream cable is going to hose it all up anyway.

Wayner

BobM · « **Reply #10 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 01:53 pm »

Charlie, you're not hearing things. But coax bettering TOSLINK is not always the case, especially in cheaper chinese DAC's. Before I modded my Zhaolu I felt that TOSLINK made for a better sound. After the mods, and after adding a pulse transformer to the coax digital input it was no contest. The coax blew away the TOSLINK.

It's all in the implementation.

I did try different TOSLINK cables, including the glass ones and couldn't hear a difference between them.

*Scotty* · « **Reply #11 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 06:34 pm »

Quote

So then anyone that builds and boasts a "jitter free" device (CD transport, etc) is a fool because the downstream cable is going to hose it all up anyway.

As you are well aware there are no "jitter free" devices and anyone claiming to have built such a device is at the least guilty of gross marketing hyperbole. Plastic toslink exhibits optical dispersion across the bundle of fibers which induces phase shift from one of the cable to the other. The end result is timing error. Glass or more properly fused silica fiber-optic cables have a lower level of dispersion and lower cable induced timing errors. Of course if you put jitter into one end of a cable it is going to come out the other end even if the cable itself doesn't add more.
Scotty

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #12 on:** 15 Jan 2010, 06:59 pm »

Hey Guys:

All I'm doing is using an Oppo 980H as a CD player hooked up to an Onkyo receiver by digital audio cable(s). There is no DAC or anything else between the Oppo and Onkyo. But like I said a coax cable sounds better to me than a toslink cable. Both cables are mid priced Monster cables.

I'm intrigued by Scotty's glass toslink cable reccomendation. I think I'll order one and see if I hear a difference. Who knows?? I might or I might not.

Cheers
Charlie

AllynW · « **Reply #13 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 05:42 pm »

I’ve used both Toslink and Coax for data transfer to DAC. I even bought a “HagUsb" USB-to-S/PDIF Converter because I had read something in forum relating USB being the best at data transfer. I have heard no perceivable difference between the various types of connections I’ve used over the years. I current use the HagUSB converter only because I paid a $100.00 for it.

Niteshade · « **Reply #14 on:** 22 Jan 2010, 05:45 pm »

I generally use Toslink but believe coax is just as good. Sky's the limit on cable prices and I firmly believe a good cable doesn't have to cost a fortune.

Nuance · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 05:28 pm »

I remember reading a post here on AC explaining why coax was better than toslink. I think it was made by Wayne from Bolder Cables??? I'll try to dig it up for you.

Listens2tubes · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 05:45 pm »

I'll just chime in that I've been told by more than one that they prefered coax to toslink including the more refined glass version. Something to do with the light bouncing around in there.

That said I have witnessed this with a friend's extenal DAC.

Go figure

gerald porzio · « **Reply #17 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 05:59 pm »

Get a good glass toslink (Amphenol, et. al.). Jitter tends to be the bugaboo for thems pushing pricey cables.

art · « **Reply #18 on:** 3 Feb 2010, 06:14 pm »

Quote from: *Scotty* on 15 Jan 2010, 06:34 pm

As you are well aware there are no "jitter free" devices and anyone claiming to have built such a device is at the least guilty of gross marketing hyperbole. Plastic toslink exhibits optical dispersion across the bundle of fibers which induces phase shift from one of the cable to the other. The end result is timing error. Glass or more properly fused silica fiber-optic cables have a lower level of dispersion and lower cable induced timing errors. Of course if you put jitter into one end of a cable it is going to come out the other end even if the cable itself doesn't add more.
Scotty

Precisely.

Actually, there are lots of reasons why optical is worse. Poor implementation.

Pat

trebejo · « **Reply #19 on:** 8 Feb 2010, 11:20 pm »

The nice thing about worrying about things like optical cables is that once you decide to worry about such a thing, you will never have to worry about not worrying again.

Those computer people must be awfully inept. They just plug these cables like they are just supposed to work.