Optical Cable Recommendations

[DSJR]

If it is only 1 meter that you require then I challenge you to find a better TOSLINK lead than mine for under £50 . See my website.

Stan, I was going to order one a few months ago, but the P&P was a heck of a lot I recall

[clap]

Stan, I was going to order one a few months ago, but the P&P was a heck of a lot I recall

I've got one of these and can confirm it is brilliant. My purchase followed a recommendation from someone on a forum. Well worth the postage.

[icehockeyboy]

Why do you have to have toslink? I believe, having compared an old tosser (did I say that properly? )to a coax, the coax was a bit better.

[goraman]

Why do you have to have toslink? I believe, having compared an old tosser (did I say that properly? )to a coax, the coax was a bit better.

It can be but a Tolsink can do every bit as good a job at sending 00101010101011010101011111000101010001010101010001 0100101010
It is not an analog cable and what ever gots the numerical stream there is good enough provided it dose not introduce enough jitter to corrupt the pathway.

So if an optical dose it for you and your doing long runs or worried about RFI it's all good .If you want to spend big bucks to do the same job you can get an all silver Teflon digital coaxial cable for $1,000 dollars and the result will be the same but you'll have bragging rights and it will stimulate the economy.

[DSJR]

The main issue in not using coax is the transmission (in the case of some computer sources) of ultrasonic and rf muck down the signal screens and possible undesirable voltages in the event of a fault into the DAC. Safer for the DAC to use a non-electrical connection which avoids these things (one once highly regarded CD player had an internal optical interface between mech and DAC to improve electrical isolation I remember)

Some optical interconnects look a lot posher than others and cost loads more, but offer no improvement in basic function, so you pays your money and takes your choice...

[nat8808]

It can be but a Tolsink can do every bit as good a job at sending 00101010101011010101011111000101010001010101010001 0100101010
It is not an analog cable and what ever gots the numerical stream there is good enough provided it dose not introduce enough jitter to corrupt the pathway.

So if an optical dose it for you and your doing long runs or worried about RFI it's all good .If you want to spend big bucks to do the same job you can get an all silver Teflon digital coaxial cable for $1,000 dollars and the result will be the same but you'll have bragging rights and it will stimulate the economy.

I thought that the problem was with Toslink itself - the Toshiba bandwidth spec for TX and RX units isn't much higher than the frequency of the S/Pdif signal itself. Therefore the leading edge of the sharp-edged square wave that the receiver chip is looking for is turned into a slow rising sine wave. Therefore jitter can be induced as the receiver doesn't latch on uniformly to each part of the signal.

That's why fancy AT&T ST optical was used (standard in optical networking and hence should be cheap now..) - much higher bandwidth and so a closer approximation to square wave. And coax is fine too.

Now, whether you hear the difference is another matter...

As an aside to audio optical v industrial optical, I sware that the few AT&T fancy optical hifi cables I've ever seen have been identical to £5 ST to ST networking patch leads... even down to orange outer sleeving .

[nat8808]

The main issue in not using coax is the transmission (in the case of some computer sources) of ultrasonic and rf muck down the signal screens and possible undesirable voltages in the event of a fault into the DAC. Safer for the DAC to use a non-electrical connection which avoids these things (one once highly regarded CD player had an internal optical interface between mech and DAC to improve electrical isolation I remember)

Some optical interconnects look a lot posher than others and cost loads more, but offer no improvement in basic function, so you pays your money and takes your choice...

Can't beat a Toslink cable with gold plated connections

[Marco]

Why do you have to have toslink? I believe, having compared an old tosser (did I say that properly? )to a coax, the coax was a bit better.

I've always wanted to test that theory, but have never owned the right equipment, which has featured both optical and coxial connections at both ends, I.E. that of my CDP/transport and DAC.

Has anyone ever carried out a proper, in-depth, comparison and arrived at a firm conclusion, as to which was perceived as being best? 'High-end' gear usually favours coaxial, over optical, but I'm not so sure that it's such a forgone conclusion.

Marco.

[clap]

My new oyaide / wbt coaxial sounds better that the Beresford optical. The Beresford optical is very good and the Oyaide was a lot more expensive.

[wee tam]

would of course like an explanation why plastic toslink turns yellow , unless you smoke 50 an hour and unplug them to get the full yellow effect ,whichever colour is used to extrude "plastic" it can only change colour exposed to the "elements" so if plugged in it really ought not to change colour , so poundland price should be obvious per item , if you are obsessed with deterioration , £50 = 50 years @ changing every year , glass of course a diiferent option , but if you plug , leave n play , why bother ?