Optical vs coaxial

[Macca]

I've connected both at once and flipped between them with the remote control until I've lost track of which is the feed.

With decent equipment there should be no discernible difference and that's what I found.

[nbaptista]

I'm keeping the Toslink.It is noiseless...

[goraman]

I would like to typify, That My coax will do 360 mb/s. A 24bit 192 khz. is 9 mb/s. So high quality coax way exceeds the bandwidth needed for audio.
I also have a Bluetooth 5.3 streamer that dose very high resolution for Bluetooth , 24 bit at 48 khz. I do use an all glass fiber Toslink cable for it.
But investing in an all glass cable is important, as the cheaper plastic cables age they turn yellow and the signal is degraded ,mostly the speed.
It's why real glass fiber it used for communications networks.
Also stay away from any 1 meter or shorter SPDIF cables. 1.5 meters is the sweet spot. To short of coax causes a high standing wave ratio, ( reflections = jitter).
A well made cable will have a 1.1 at 1.5 meters and longer, this is Ideal.

[Barry]

High standing wave ratio is a bit of a 'red herring'. Any modern CDP or DAC will have, respectively, output and input impedances close to 75 Ohm.

A standing wave ratio of 1.1:1 implies a cable impedance of 68 Ohm or 82.5 Ohm. The tolerance for a typical 75 Ohm impedance cable is +/-3 Ohm, that is the measured impedance can lay anywhere between 72 to 78 Ohms, which implies a SWR of 1.042:1 at worse. Better cables will have an impedance of 75 +/-2 Ohm.

[Lawrence001]

I had wondered about cable length on the basis that resistance doubles as you double the length and presumably impedance does the same. But cables were described as "75 ohm" regardless of length.

So it appears the causes of impedance are not the same as resistance and therefore this rule doesn't apply.

[narabdela]

Also stay away from any 1 meter or shorter SPDIF cables. 1.5 meters is the sweet spot. To short of coax causes a high standing wave ratio, ( reflections = jitter).
A well made cable will have a 1.1 at 1.5 meters and longer, this is Ideal.

This is out of date advice that has pretty much been debunked nowadays. Theoretical stuff that has no real world effect.

[Jimbo]

Hey chaps this is all a load of nonsense.

Doesn't matter what any one says on a forum or in a technical review the only way to know if you should use coaxial or optical is to try both in your system and then choose which one you think sounds best. Surely?

[Barry]

And to decide whether you prefer glass or plastic fibre optic cable.

[Stryder5]

Just to add... AES cable?

Gary

[Barry]

Just to add... AES cable?

Gary

Does that use XLR connectors? XLRs are not constant impedance designs.