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Glass Optical Cables

post #1 of 15
1/28/06 at 7:00pm
Thread Starter 
I don't really understand why it should make any difference. My understanding is that any errors in an optical stream would be audible as clicks or pops, however without those the signal is getting through as intended.

But anyway, I just switched from a cheapo monster plastic toslink cable to a proper glass optical cable and the difference is absolutely obvious. The sound is so much cleaner. Well beyond placebo, especially as I can't explain why there should be a difference.

Any thoughts?
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post #2 of 15
1/28/06 at 7:53pm
I think it is because better transmission lowers interface jitter.
6 ft Ebay glass cable does sound a bit better than 20 ft cheap plastic cable when connected to my Central Station. For Benchmark DAC1 I could not really tell.
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post #3 of 15
1/28/06 at 9:06pm
I consider myself a very objective person, and all science and reason tells me that a glass optical cable would make absolutely no perceivable difference over the plastic variety. However, such a disproportionate amount of people here claim a noticable improvement beyond placebo that I think I am going to have to get one of those eBay class cables just to see for myself.

$30 is not a major sacrifice for something that might not improve my system, at least it won't make it worse.
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post #4 of 15
1/29/06 at 10:51pm
For about $15 for a 3ft or $20 for a 6ft or 12ft at http://www.uniqueproductsonline.com/
it's a relatively inexpensive experiment to try both and see if YOU notice a difference in your system and whether it's worth the cost of the Glass Toslink cable.

Jitter plays an important part in the quality of the analog music produced from the digital stream. The "digital stream" has an analog component - involving timing. Once again, it's not a matter of just getting the digitally sampled bits from point A to point B, but HOW they arrive (their timing) is important as well. So, physical aspects of the cable (such as material) can be, well, material in the overall sound quality.

Folks who have tried both have posted observations ranging from "the inexpensive plastic cable is preferred", through "the more expensive glass cable is preferred". Given the differences in our rigs, ears, and sonic tastes/goals we make different observations when we try the same things - nothing new there.

The real question in these matters is always, do YOU hear an appreciable difference in YOUR setup which justifies the cost to YOU. Since a Glass Toslink can be had for $20-ish, it's not at all prohibitive to try one of each and see if, with your equipment and to your ear, it makes a difference.

Blessed are the ones who prefer less expensive equipment, for they shall have more funds for music.
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post #5 of 15
1/30/06 at 12:17am
A very important fact with toslink cables is the connector. A loose connection can interrupt the signal, and many toslink cables do not fit securely.


For runs under 25 feet, glass or plastic doesn't make a huge difference. For longer runs I would use glass fiber to reduce the possibility of jitter.
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post #6 of 15
1/30/06 at 1:33am
I'm planning on getting a DAC (probably the DAC-Ah) for my birthday, so I've been trying to read up on the different types of optical cables. It really does seem like glass cables are much better than the plastic variants, but even in such small 6 foot runs, are the differences that profound?
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post #7 of 15
1/30/06 at 2:31am
I recently bought a Glass cable with had it shipped for $30.
Since I've only read that a Glass toslink would be the same or might be better... I figured it was a safe purchase.
Note: my DAC does not have any sophisticated jitter-reduction technology. With that... it's my opinion that it made my system a bit smoother in the treble (in a good way). Not huge. Might be in my head. It's not worse... and it was only $30.
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post #8 of 15
1/30/06 at 2:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Revliskciuq
I consider myself a very objective person, and all science and reason tells me that a glass optical cable would make absolutely no perceivable difference over the plastic variety.
There are real technical explanations on why Toslink jitter cna affect jitter.

Optical cable can affect interface jitter.
Let me quote Bob Katz in his book, "Mastering Audio":
"It [glass cable] also has superior bandwidth and therefore causes fewer interface jitter problems, jitter as low as as any good copper connection. Glass fibre connections can have even lower interface jitter than unbalanced copper connections becuase they eliminate ground loops and EMI sensitivity."

If any man knows jitter, Bob Katz definitely does. He only talks about verified facts in his book. Toslink cable does not just transmit the bits--there is still analog clock information being passed along. It is not crazy that people hear differences in optical cables, it is just that their DAC's jitter rejection is not as good as it can be. But then again, jitter rejection is never easy.
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post #9 of 15
1/30/06 at 2:52am
Quote:
are the differences that profound?
I doubt it, although I've only tried the plastic variety (my glass cable is in the mail). I suspect that some of the improvements might be due to the fact that glass cables generally enjoy better overall construction, where cheaper plastic cables can often have lackluster connecters.

Being that a glass optical cable shouldn't cost you more than $20 (unless you need a really long one), there's really no reason to not get one.

Quote:
For Benchmark DAC1 I could not really tell.
The Benchmark has some pretty advanced jitter correction, maybe that has something to do with it. Just a guess.
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post #10 of 15
1/30/06 at 2:58am
What interesting timing! Somehow I just lost my old Glass Optical Cable while waiting for the DAC-ah to come back from mods, so I looked around and found a BARGAIN-

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=180-951

Lookit the original price! But this cable ended up being only 5 bucks more than the ebay one i got before after S&H, very cool.
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post #11 of 15
1/30/06 at 4:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jahn
What interesting timing! Somehow I just lost my old Glass Optical Cable while waiting for the DAC-ah to come back from mods, so I looked around and found a BARGAIN-

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=180-951

Lookit the original price! But this cable ended up being only 5 bucks more than the ebay one i got before after S&H, very cool.
Nice Find.
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post #12 of 15
1/30/06 at 5:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbulack
Blessed are the ones who prefer less expensive equipment, for they shall have more funds for music.
Amen brother.
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post #13 of 15
1/30/06 at 9:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSloth
I just switched from a cheapo monster plastic toslink cable to a proper glass optical cable and the difference is absolutely obvious. The sound is so much cleaner. Well beyond placebo, especially as I can't explain why there should be a difference.

Any thoughts?
I wouldn't expect that there would really be that much of a difference with the Max DAC.

[From Headroom's site] "The Max DAC is a work of digital upsampling art in gold and black. These four layer gold coated, double copper circuit boards are covered edge to edge with the best parts money can buy, and right in the middle of it an Analog Devices AD1896 192 kHz Stereo Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter. WHAT! Simply a screaming gizmo that upconverts any digital signal into an ultra high speed, high resolution digital signal without relying on the incoming clock, and then down converts it into the slower 192 kHz word stream while interpolating (to get rid of the “digital” haze) and reclocking (to get rid of jitter) before sending the data off to the DACs."

I would think that the difference you're hearing is caused by an improvement in jitter going to the glass cable. If that's so, then the only explanation would have to be that the Max DAC is not that jitter-resistant. But knowing Headroom, that seems unlikely. So why is there an improvement in SQ?
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post #14 of 15
1/30/06 at 11:14am
I bought the glass optical one from partsexpress myself for my Dialogue II, works great, and has decent build quality. (I dont like the crappy nylon type covering for the cable. Im too used to my nice looking techflex.) Besides that tho, very rugged and the connections are pro. Great price
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post #15 of 15
1/30/06 at 6:44pm
oops- measured my desk and 1.5 ft isn't going to be long enough - 3ft is perfect tho so i'm going to get twice the length for 2 more bucks, whew-

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=180-952

It woulda been 5 but they knocked off 3 bucks because they shipped superquick before i had time to change my mind lol - it's like they were apologizing on doing business quickly! not a bad joint.
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