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DAC cable question.

post #1 of 7
12/21/04 at 4:52pm
Thread Starter 
I have the choice of using a coaxial digital cable or a toslink digitial cable for my DAC. Are there sound differences between the two?

I'm using an 0404 soundcard as my transport.
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post #2 of 7
12/21/04 at 5:14pm
only (worthless) bits of info I can offer

1) coax is for some reason the "preferred" cable
2) toslink cables can be really long and really cheap

perhaps you can try em both out and see which you prefer? for 20$ or so you could get a belden coax and acoustics research toslink....

I currently use a kimber kcag silver digital cable, and the glass ebay toslink cable with my DAC.

whichever you end up choosing don't forget to enjoy the music!
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post #3 of 7
12/21/04 at 6:54pm
From what I have gathered here and elsewhere the Toslink may be a good option for a Computer source because it will help to filter much of the "noise" that the machine produces, both electrical and vibration from spinning fans.

I believe the Toslink uses a laser beam of some kind to transport its signal (don't quote me though), and therefore avoids transmitting the "dirtiness" of the PC's power supply (in the form of jitter) to your DAC.
At least so I'm told.. better ask one of the other Head-Fi'ers for clarification
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post #4 of 7
12/21/04 at 7:03pm
coaxial is good but can pick up outside noise into the signal. optical is good also but wont pick up any interference.

my suggestion? use the optical unless you have a really good coaxial cable.
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post #5 of 7
12/24/04 at 2:30pm
Out of curiousity, I once did a comparison of between my glass toslink and co-axial cables. I can't say that one sounds better than the other, only that there is a slight difference - slight in that you must really concentrate to notice it (so if you're going to be surfing the web or doing other chores while listening, you probably wouldn't hear the difference).

I found that co-axial cable yielded a brighter sound and a more spacious soundstage. The toslink was a little warmer and less airy. But these differences are very minute. And system synergy might have been a factor here too.
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post #6 of 7
12/24/04 at 2:53pm
I personally use coax in two meter lengths and find it the better performer for 1 to 2 meters but beyond that have always gone with toslink.My longest run was once 50ft

I know optical can do long distance because my entire town is wired with the stuff for all telephone and cable TV transmission.As long as the transmittine nedium is pure and undistorted it is just light being pilsed down the line and then like any other digital signal re-assembled at the other end into a useable analog version of the "blips" and i also know that all "wire" will have losses after a certain length.

both can use repeaters for extreme lengths but simple is good
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post #7 of 7
12/24/04 at 8:14pm
The "dirtyness" of the signal doesn't matter, only jitter. And optical usually has a bit larger jitter values than coaxial.
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