Optical vs Coax
I've been following this interesting thread, but, as usual, got lost in the technical stuff a few posts in!
It did get me thinking about optical vs coax though. I use two digital cables into my Roksan DAC; a Atlas coax from the cdp (£40) and a cheap optical (£5)from the DAB tuner. I decided on this set up after listening and swapping cables around and felt that the coax was - as mentioned in this discussion - darker sounding, so chose it for the cpd, which I listen to most. I didn't even consider buying a quality optical thinking they're all much of a muchness, but after reading the discussion maybe I should. Atlas do a toslink for about £40. Getting one of these would also make all my inter-connects the same model of the same brand. My questions are; is it worth spending the cash on presumably a better quality optical lead, and does it benefit overall SQ of the set up if all interconnects are by the same manufacturer, and the same model?
Linn Axis tt/Akito arm/Nagaoka MP200 or ATVM95/ML carts/Trichord Dino mk3 phono stage/dedicated PSU
Marantz CD6006/Cambridge 650T DAB
Tisbury Mini Passive II pre/Roksan K3 Dac/Roksan K2 integrated used as power amp
Atlas Element Integra Superior inter-connects
Spendor SP1s(1988)/Van-Damme UP-LCOFC HiFi 4mm cable