Optical vs electrical S/PDIF

[Lawrence001]

I've always thought that RCA was better than Toslink and verified this with occasional quick A/B comparisons which showed that the optical lost the last bit of detail and had slightly woolly bass. Anyway, I've been getting a bit tired of my second system recently and stuck a cheap optical cable in to see what happened. Result - I'm listening to whole albums again and really enjoying it. Not going to spend any time trying to understand why, the proof is in the pudding after all! Might give it another go in my main system soon.

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[Primalsea]

Optical does have the advantage that it isolates the circuits of the source and DAC from each other. This means that it could be better than the coaxial connection is there is an issue with noise or ground loops. I have heard that technically the optical connection is not as highly specified as the coaxial. However, this does not mean that a particular implementation is actually worse.

I think sometimes you just have to give it a go to see what you think.

[Macca]

As I understand it, it depends on how well the optical output is implemented. I have swapped between coax and optical on a few cd players and the results varied from indistinguishable to not as good from the optical. Although the differences were slight enough that I suspect I would have trouble spotting them if I did not know which connection I was using.

My perception was that the optical could sound a little lighter and sweeter whilst at the same time lacking some impact, most notable as 'soft' bass. But as I say, a slight difference, on the edge of perception.

An optical cable can be too long for the signal to pass down it without problems, again depends on how good the optical output is.


So in short results will vary from case to case.

[Sherwood]

I have never had any problems with optical cables, including some quie long runs.

However, since acquiring an Allo Digione which eschews optical cables due to higher jitter, I have been using a very short BNC to RCA cable (25cm) from this Nottingham company;

https://www.designacable.com/neutrik-bnc-to-rca-lead-van-damme-75ohm-plasma-coax-cable-cctv-video-spdif.html

I cannot fault it either in terms of construction or sound quality and at a bargain price.

Geoff

[struth]

Not a lot of difference if the interface is right. Think bandwidth is different but for most it won't be an issue

[Sherwood]

Not a lot of difference if the interface is right. Think bandwidth is different but for most it won't be an issue

I think the output is higher though I did not do an A-B comparison. For me the main thing is the mechanical integrity of the connection. I am not impressed by the RCA connector on the Digione: very flimsy. The BNC connector bolts to the case and appears much more robust. Also, much more surface area than an RCA socket.

geoff