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Optical Glass to Toslink mini??

post #1 of 13
6/23/01 at 7:28am
Thread Starter 
Anyone know where I can get such a cable? IF not Glass to mini then Glass to regular toslink and I can use this little adapter I have but I know it reduces sound quality because I bought it at walmart. And if you have experience with them first hand what are your recommendations? Actually it might be good to just get a Glass to toslink adaptor if such a thing exists. Any advice on that issue as well??
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post #2 of 13
6/24/01 at 12:59am
Umm, just because you got it at WalMart dosen't mean it reduces quality. Optical cables transmit a digital signal, so no loss of quality occurs when traveling through even the crappiest cables.
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post #3 of 13
6/24/01 at 2:14am
Thread Starter 
Sorry but yes it can! I have heard differences between optical cables already and I have little experience with them!! The one I bought at wal mart is thinner and brighter sounding than the cheaper recoton I bought at best buy. I understand your point of view and trust me it is difficult to udnerstadn at first but the quality of your optical cable canaffect signal quality! I think the most important aspects of a digital optical cable are the accuracy to which the ends are polished to and the purity of the glass inside the cable.
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post #4 of 13
6/24/01 at 2:42am
Ok, whatever, I've never worked with digital optical so I was just theorizing
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post #5 of 13
6/25/01 at 12:49pm
"TOSlink" and "mini" are two different kinds of connectors. I believe that all optical cables use fiberglass...

It is possible to find TOSlink to mini optical cables -- these can often be found with computer-MD digital recording bundles, such as the Xitel DG1 and DG2 and the new Sony ones. But you'll probably end up saving the most money just by getting a decent-quality optical digital TOSlink - TOSlink cable online for about $10-15 and using your adapter.

If you really think a tiny adapter can actually influence the sound, get the RadioShack adapter for $4 and compare... I doubt you'll really find a difference. It is true that optical signals, while they can't be influenced by magnetic fields created by nearby currents, can be distorted by imperfections in the glass. But when it's such a short distance, I doubt that there's really any deterioration.
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post #6 of 13
6/25/01 at 1:28pm

How can the optical cable affect the sound?

I am not saying that it doesn't, but I am very interested in how the cable which is just passing digital information affect the sound with out actually changing 1s and 0s in the datastream being passed through it?
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post #7 of 13
6/25/01 at 1:30pm
Me Too.
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post #8 of 13
6/25/01 at 5:45pm

here's one reason why...

Ever heard of Rayleigh Scattering. It's the effect of different wavelengths of light travelling at different speeds through any medium, the glass of a fibre included.

This doesn't cause any probs if u use a perfect mono-chromatic light source, but realistically any source of light, even the red from a red LED, contained a band of red light accross a narrow frequency range.

Therefore, some red light will travel down the cable faster than other frequencies (can't remember if its lower freq the faster or higher freq, but dont really matter when describing the effect). What happens is at the reception end, the square digital pulse "spreads out" in time.

This makes it hard for the reception circuitry to decide when EXACTLY is a 0 or a 1 transistion, and thus adds JITTER. JITTER as we all know degrades sound quality in digital systems, and this is well documented elsewhere.

Therefore, quality of optical cable is impotant. You want the purest glass to minimise spreading, and the best approximation to a monochromatic source you can get, sadly not the cheap red LEDs commonplace in most players.

That help???
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post #9 of 13
6/25/01 at 6:55pm

Thank you, but now I have another question...

Okay, that makes sense with the fiber optic cable, it's like jitter in a CD then? My new question then is how does a digital coax cable affect the sound quality when it is again jsut sending 1s and 0s through it for example the digital out on a dvd player going to a receiver?
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post #10 of 13
6/25/01 at 7:15pm
Real cable doesn't have the flat frequency response from 0 to infinity. You'd get the similar effect in a coax where different frequencies travel at different speeds and therefore get imperfect signal at the end of cable. Plus any external interference can enter the cable which is unlikely in an optical cable. In the end you again get jitter. The effect of the cable is however much less pronounced then if the signal were analog and the receiver chips are able to correct a lot of problems or even get rid of it completely (that's very costly though).

I'd like to hear if anyone compared digital cables. Many people compared interconnects but not the digital feed (probably because most people don't have external DACs).
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post #11 of 13
6/25/01 at 7:49pm
Quite. Or to put it differently the coax has capacitance, inductance and resistance associated with it and therefore acts as a filter of some sort.

A PERFECT sqaure wave has INFINITE bandwidth. obviously the coax is bandlimited and thus the output is never a perfect sqaure wave (which is not even imputted as impossible to create). therefore get jitter problems with coax too.
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post #12 of 13
6/25/01 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
So, any of you know where I can get a good "glass" to toslink connector? Im going to check radioshack for an adaptor. "Glass" is sort of like BNC in the realm of digital coax.
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post #13 of 13
6/26/01 at 8:18am
Hi ai0tron!

"3.5mm mini-ToslInk plugs at both ends" at www.supracables.co.uk

ADEWOLF
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