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Which is the best optical cable under $300? - Page 2

post #16 of 168
12/8/09 at 4:55pm
Thread Starter 
I agree a Coaxial is very different, but why some optical cables are so expensive if they don't offer any improvement in SQ?
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post #17 of 168
12/8/09 at 5:19pm
The Truth About Interconnects and Cables — Reviews and News from Audioholics

As you can see there, things such as power cords will make no difference unless you go from an unshielded to shielded. Speaker/headphone cords CAN make a difference, but not a huge one (certainly not worth the massive prices people shell out), interconnects can sound different, again, not on a large level.

Digital interconnects, with the exception of Coaxial, make no difference as long as they are properly built. Coaxial does make a difference, but I still wouldn't drop over $100 on it (I use the same $25 Canare Coaxial cable I've always used, tried an $100 one and noticed literally no difference, $300 was a different story but that's just too much).
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post #18 of 168
12/8/09 at 5:43pm
Thread Starter 
Necrolic, thanks for the link
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post #19 of 168
12/10/09 at 2:57am
To be honest, I don't think there's much difference between solidly made optical cables. As for differences in price? If you have the money, someone will make a product to take it.

I can't say the same for power cords or interconnects. I noticed a slight difference from a generic power cord to an emotiva power cord and a very noticeable difference going from the emotiva to the audioquest cord. Using high quality interconnects has also improved the sound.
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post #20 of 168
12/10/09 at 3:28am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevM2 View Post
To be honest, I don't think there's much difference between solidly made optical cables.

Using high quality interconnects has also improved the sound.
I agree with both of your comments.

I am trying to find out how the SQ will be affected by a 10X more expensive Toslink Cable.

Maybe you won't get a lot of reflections, loss of quality when it's bent, better transmission through perfectly polished superior ends.

Note I am talking about cable lengths 3m or less.
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post #21 of 168
12/10/09 at 12:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Necrolic View Post
The Truth About Interconnects and Cables — Reviews and News from Audioholics

As you can see there, things such as power cords will make no difference unless you go from an unshielded to shielded. Speaker/headphone cords CAN make a difference, but not a huge one (certainly not worth the massive prices people shell out), interconnects can sound different, again, not on a large level.

Digital interconnects, with the exception of Coaxial, make no difference as long as they are properly built. Coaxial does make a difference, but I still wouldn't drop over $100 on it (I use the same $25 Canare Coaxial cable I've always used, tried an $100 one and noticed literally no difference, $300 was a different story but that's just too much).
I read that article and there are many things that bother me about it. To not drag this thread off topic, I started a new one discussing that article here : http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/my...9/#post6223875

As for answering rosgr63 question, I have tried many plastic optical cables and none of them reached the performance of the cheapest coaxial cables I have.
However, glass fiber optical cables such as Wireworld Supernova 5+ are supposed to sound much better than plastic optical cables.
As for needing to spend up to $300 on a coaxial cable to notice a diffrence with the canare coaxial cable, this wasn't the case in my system. I find that the similarly priced Belden cable performs much better and that stepping up to the $150 Stereovox really makes a big difference.
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post #22 of 168
12/10/09 at 1:17pm
I stopped at Beresford TC-3618 due to price. It's indistinguishable from VdH Optocoupler II and Profigold PGD5000 AFAIR what my friend tested but it is distinguishable from many cheap, crappy plastic or tiny glass (beware of ebay) cables. With the Beresford you gett all you need - stiff sheath, polished glass lens and rugged ST plug. No need to pay more.

Re: coaxial. This is often because of bad Toslink transmitter and/or receiver power supply conditions. Don't blame the cable, blame accountants for savings on good capacitors near Toslink devices. I had to improve it in both my transport and DAC adding some tantalum capacitors nearby.
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post #23 of 168
12/11/09 at 2:01am
*this* one : -> 6' OPTICAL FIBER OPTIC TOSLINK DIGITAL AUDIO CABLE 6 FT - eBay (item 380179237262 end time Dec-18-09 11:51:26 PST)
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post #24 of 168
12/11/09 at 9:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by majkel View Post
I stopped at Beresford TC-3618 due to price. It's indistinguishable from VdH Optocoupler II and Profigold PGD5000 AFAIR what my friend tested but it is distinguishable from many cheap, crappy plastic or tiny glass (beware of ebay) cables. With the Beresford you gett all you need - stiff sheath, polished glass lens and rugged ST plug. No need to pay more.

Re: coaxial. This is often because of bad Toslink transmitter and/or receiver power supply conditions. Don't blame the cable, blame accountants for savings on good capacitors near Toslink devices. I had to improve it in both my transport and DAC adding some tantalum capacitors nearby.
Coaxial vs. Optical :
First, just a little reminder. There is no such thing as pure digital transmission. Even with so called "digital data", the signal being transmitted is analog.

Second, when using the optical cable, you are adding 2 extra steps in the signal chain : first the signal has to be converted to light (toslink connection) a the transport side then it has to be converted back to an electrical signal in the receiving side.
The only benefit of this process is the galvanic isolation between the components.
But, if someone worries about "jitter" or losses induced by the digital cable, why would we go through 2 extra steps of signal processing?
By the way, by using transformers in the coaxial line, we can achieve the galvanic isolation while benefeting from a much higher bandwidth than what you would get with a toslink connection.

I looked at the Beresford TC-3618 and it has a 10MHZ bandwidth. In comparison, the Stereovox XV2 coaxial cable has 4ghz bandwidth.
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post #25 of 168
12/11/09 at 9:53am
Thread Starter 
slim.a its true the more conversions you have the more likely to degrade the signal.
How important is galvanic isolation?
What problems can you have because of it?
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post #26 of 168
12/11/09 at 10:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rosgr63 View Post
slim.a its true the more conversions you have the more likely to degrade the signal.
How important is galvanic isolation?
What problems can you have because of it?
Well this is just my opinions based on what I read and some logic. If someone cares about jitter, that person would like to have the least conversion processes in the signal chain.
Toslink is considered bad for high quality audio by many audio designers. Kingwa, from audio-gd, has found out that Toslink has many orders of magnitude of jitter higher than RCA spdif. And RCA spdif has 10 times more jitter than BNC (at least with his DACs).
One more intersting factor to consider is the bandwidth extension between toslink vs. coaxial. One is limited in the MHZ range while the other can go to the GHZ. My bet is that the extra step processes are the culprit in this difference.

As for galvanic isolation. It is essential to use some kind of transformer/isolation in the signal path between the computer and the DAC to avoid noise pick up in the receiving end and ground issues.
Toslink does the job very well at isolation but so do most of the transformers/pulse transformers used in many transports (cd players or usb to spdif converters).
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post #27 of 168
12/11/09 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by majkel View Post
Re: coaxial. This is often because of bad Toslink transmitter and/or receiver power supply conditions. Don't blame the cable, blame accountants for savings on good capacitors near Toslink devices. I had to improve it in both my transport and DAC adding some tantalum capacitors nearby.
Coaxial generally outperforms Optical, it's a well known fact, due to above mentioned reasons.
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post #28 of 168
12/11/09 at 6:07pm
Thread Starter 
I run one of my systems via a cheap optical cable and via USB-S/PDIF (hiFace) Coaxial and the SQ is very similar.
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post #29 of 168
12/12/09 at 3:43pm
Article on optical: TOSLINK Interconnect History & Basics — Reviews and News from Audioholics

Or if you want to get to the meat of the matter: Understanding Digital Interconnects

Quote:
TOSLINK has a couple of drawbacks that must be acknowledged and understood to maximize performance, however. First, the implementation of TOSLINK requires a change in format from an electrical to an optical medium. No such change, including similar changes from digital-to-analog or from analog-to-digital, is without cost. In the case of transforming the electrical data stream to an optical signal for use with a TOSLINK interconnect you will increase levels of both noise and distortion within the system. This decrease in fidelity may be especially pronounced with wide-bandwidth multi-channel signals.

A related drawback of the TOSLINK scheme is its tendency towards restricted bandwidth. Truncated bandwidth in an optical connection can cause signal interpolation and/or jitter, and thus compromise the sound. Selecting a high quality interconnect with a minimum 10MHz bandwidth ensures maximum compatibility with multi-channel sources such as a DTS-encrypted DVD.

Second, an optical interconnect has a maximum bend radius before internal reflections become detrimental to the signal. Put plainly, you can’t make a tight turn with a TOSLINK interconnect without causing a measurable drop in signal level. In fact, a tight bend in a TOSLINK interconnect can permanently damage the delicate optical conductor and cause a complete failure of the signal! The best TOSLINK interconnects will boast a high purity quartz conductor which allow as tight as a three-inch bend before signal loss exceeds .5 decibel.
Btw I prefer my computer usb to a $40 2m cables to go sonicwave toslink.
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post #30 of 168
12/12/09 at 3:57pm
Thread Starter 
haloxt thanks for the links. I have already read the Audioholics article, I will read the second one which looks very interesting.
The problem with the USB is that if your DAC doesn't have it, you'll have to use a USB/SPDIF device first, plus you'll probably need a good quality USB cable unless you use hiFace.
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