[kelly]

I recently bought a handful of Finest Glass toslink interconnects. You can find them on eBay easily if you're interested in obtaining them.

I had always followed the common wisdom that coax was better than toslink and that had been true in my limited experience. However, I had been using cheap plastic toslink cables from Radio Shack and Monster.

With my receiver, in order to connect everything that was capable of supporting Dolby Digital (including DSS), I had no choice but to use toslink. Thus, I decided to look for some decent cables.

To my surprise, the difference was not subtle. I'm not sure what exactly the plastic toslink cables do wrong but I no longer believe that all of the signal was reaching the receiver with those cables. I now hear much better bass and more openness. I understand that this is digital and I don't mean to argue with science--but I just can't believe all the bits were getting there before. The receiver must have been having to do some error correction of some sort.

I've not yet compared the Finest Glass Toslink to good digital coax cables. From what I've read, there is very little quality difference from one glass toslink to the next and they all sound identical. This has not been true in my experience with digital coax so I wonder if the glass toslink may actually be better. Either way, toslink's bad reputation is owed to the plastic toslink.

Just thought I'd share my experience.

 

[kuma]

The tonal balance on coax, depending on the brand, runs gamut while toslinks, for some reason whether plastic, silica-bundled or glass, they all stay neutural. Top end extension and resolution of glass toslink surpassed Cardas or upper end Monster coax. Monster M1000 toslink had better bass transients than glass toslink, but lost out in top end air. So, this becomes matter of which end of frequency spectrum one values.

50$ Kimber plastic toslinks along with Sony, Pioneer plastic toslinks really give the rest of opticals a bad name.

Having said that, unless I find a glass toslink that sounds like my current fave of either NBS or Siltechs, I'm sticking with a coax for now.

 

[Sol_Zhen]

Yes. hospital grade fiber and good glass fiber can make an improvement over plastic. The quality of the grind for termination also has an impact.

 

[Gergor]

Any recommendation on a good reasonably priced glass toslink?

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor Any recommendation on a good reasonably priced glass toslink?

The Finest Glass Toslink being sold on eBay that I mentioned in the first post of this thread?

 

[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor Any recommendation on a good reasonably priced glass toslink?

• other glass toslinks

Along with Kelly's Finest Glass Toslinks, there are Wireworld's Super NOva III and Sound Professional.

 

[Gergor]

Not all glass fibres are the same, no? I heard that AT&T glass is the highest quality? Is that correct?

 

[Mystyler]

kelly, how sturdy is your glass TOSlink cable? I have this image of them shattering if you attempt to bend to much them or subject them to excessive force...

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mystyler kelly, how sturdy is your glass TOSlink cable? I have this image of them shattering if you attempt to bend to much them or subject them to excessive force...

They bend enough to easily snake behind components (they're not made by Virtual Dynamics or Bolder or anything) but I probably wouldn't test their limits by trying to wind them up too tight. I'm sure they're fine for "normal use." They may not be suitable to travel with if you have a PDAC though.

 

[Bostonears]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor Any recommendation on a good reasonably priced glass toslink?

The glass Toslink cable sold by Sound Professionals at only $49, is the least expensive I've seen.
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cg...9HQ&type=store

It outperforms the Better Cables coax that I was previously using.

(This cable may actually be identical to the "Finest" cable sold on eBay, described by Kelly.)

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly They bend enough to easily snake behind components (they're not made by Virtual Dynamics or Bolder or anything) but I probably wouldn't test their limits by trying to wind them up too tight. I'm sure they're fine for "normal use." They may not be suitable to travel with if you have a PDAC though.

Yeah, I wouldn't travel with them. Nor would I recommend being anything but penultimately careful with them while behind components, even if you're leaving them alone (I.E. other cables back there). They have a tendency not to just shatter, but to develop hairline fractures, which will ruin their ability to convey light without problems.