does quality of optical cables have effect on SQ?

[unkle11]

i'm looking for a really long optical cable and have seen 6ft long cables for 13 bucks and 4 f ones for about 40 bucks so i am wondering, does the quality of optical cables have any effect on sound quality??

thanks

 

[edwardsean]

You know, I never thought so. It initially made no sense to me how a digital cable could matter that much. But, the difference in analog cables quickly became apparent to me so I started checking out whether digital cables also affected SQ. I read a lot on both sides, but in the end I just bought a whole bunch of cables. There is a definite difference in both sound signature and sound quality. It has to do with jitter introduced by the cable. But irregardless of the technical details it is worth getting a good optical cable. Many of the best ones like Van de Hul and Nordost are prohibitively expensive. Fortunately there is one that I found that is simply fantastic. It's a glass optical by Unique products. It offers a wide soundstage and fluid presentation. Here is a link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/3'-3-ft-GLASS-TOSLINK-DIGITAL-OPTICAL-CABLE----Premium_W0QQitemZ270163963826QQcmdZViewItem

 

[unkle11]

thanks for your reply i will look into that link

 

[infinitesymphony]

Either the glass TOSlink mentioned above, or the built-to-spec Mitsubishi Eska from BJC will be great choices. It's also recommended to buy lengths of cables intended for digital use in multiples of 1.5 meters (3 feet), for various reasons relating to the wavelengths of digital signals (or at least that's my vague understanding).

 

[krmathis]

To me there are some audible differences between optical cables.
I switched from a Monster iCable to a Van den Hul Optocoupler MKII in my main rig a couple of months back, and noticed some minor audible improvement.

Unsure if its worth the 5x price tag though....

 

[purk]

Yes. The difference b/w my monster optical cable v.s. wirewrold optical cable was very noticable. The wireworld supernova 5+ has excellent sound quality.

 

[evilking]

You people aren't serious? Audible differences in an optical cable?

Wow...

You know, it is possible to test these "differences", simply by recording the output and comparing with the original. If it's not the same, then it's a broken cable. If it is the same, then you've saved money...

My answer to the orginal question is... no!

 

[Scrith]

I originally used an eBay "glass" optical cable with my Benchmark DAC1. But I noticed that sometimes the error light would flash (about once or twice per hour). I did some research and found a reasonably priced (i.e. less than $100) cable, the Van den Hul Optocoupler (I posted about it here a couple of years ago). With the new cable the error light stopped flashing and the music sounded better. I posted about my experience here a couple of years ago and have noticed a few others must have read it, because now there are several Optocouplers floating around Head-Fi, it seems.

I attribute the improvement to the idea (just my idea, mind you) that cheap (eBay) "glass" cables are more prone to fracturing or something (I hypothesize that this is particularly true if you bend them during installation). So I think a better cable (treated carefully) might be worth the investment.

 

[evilking]

^^^ Exactly.

An optical cable works or doesn't work. The signal/data "gets there" properly or... it doesn't! You can't get "more signal/data" than the original to the destination, therefore the cable can't get progressively better. If you test the output and it's 100% correct, then that's as good as it gets!

Honestly, those 4 previous posters should be ashamed for suggesting otherwise

 

[Agent Kang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by evilking /img/forum/go_quote.gif You people aren't serious? Audible differences in an optical cable? Wow... You know, it is possible to test these "differences", simply by recording the output and comparing with the original. If it's not the same, then it's a broken cable. If it is the same, then you've saved money... My answer to the orginal question is... no!

I've tried a whole bunch purely to satisfy my curiosity regarding differences in SQ. I really couldn't hear the difference. Analog cables, I definitely can. Digital cables? Nope.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

This article compares some toslink and coaxial brands. Quite an interesting read.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/toslink/toslink.html

 

[bigshot]

My Macbook has bitperfect optical output, and I use it to play back 5:1 DTS, which is resolved in my amp. If it wasn't bitperfect, it would unlock from DTS. I have NEVER seen it do that. An optical cable is an optical cable. Either it works or it doesn't. If it errors, it will error relatively big and in an instant. It won't add any sort of coloration to the sound.

See ya
Steve

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew_WOT /img/forum/go_quote.gif This article compares some toslink and coaxial brands. Quite an interesting read. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/toslink/toslink.html

The same publication that gave Brilliant Pebbles a good review.

See ya
Steve

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by evilking /img/forum/go_quote.gif An optical cable works or doesn't work. The signal/data "gets there" properly or... it doesn't! You can't get "more signal/data" than the original to the destination, therefore the cable can't get progressively better. If you test the output and it's 100% correct, then that's as good as it gets!

Here lies the point of contention. The argument is that cheap (i.e. not-to-spec) optical cables are lossy and can degrade the quality of the signal. Here's some indirect corroboration from Blue Jeans Cable:

Quote:

"For these applications, we build our optical cables using the finest high-performance Plastic Optical Fiber (POF), Mitsubishi's ESKA Fiber. While POF is in general rather lossy stuff compared to glass optical fiber, we prefer it for optical digital audio use because it's much more physically durable and because its aperture matches the spec for optical digital audio use, unlike glass fiber which is too small and must be used in bundles."

Can better optics improve your vision? In a similar way, a better optical cable will improve the quality of light transmission. TOSlink is not regarded as the best method for digital transmission because the quality of its implementation varies from device to device. Think of it this way--a dim light may seem closer to 0 some of the time than 1, therefore it won't be properly transmitted all of the time. At least, that's my understanding; like analog cables, it's not a matter of all-or-nothing.

Here's an article from BJC called, "Digital and Analog Cables; What's the Difference?." It mostly applies to coaxial digital cables, but one can imagine how an optical cable might have similar problems and requirements.

Even better is this article on Audioholics called, "TOSLINK Interconnect History & Basics."

 

[evilking]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif TOSlink is not regarded as the best method for digital transmission because the quality of its implementation varies from device to device. Think of it this way--a dim light may seem closer to 0 some of the time than 1, therefore it won't be properly transmitted all of the time. At least, that's my understanding; like analog cables, it's not a matter of all-or-nothing.

I didn't say "all-or-nothing", I meant "100%-or-not 100%". If you have the hardware, you can "look" (save and open with an audio editor) at the data recieved with perfect accuracy (it's all digital). Then you can compare with the original byte-for-byte.

It's that simple. All objective, it's either the same or not the same.

That's the optical cable's job, to digitally transfer data. Just like a USB cable. When you send a file from one device, over USB, to another device, is anything lost on the way? Of course not. If the cable is faulty, the file can't be processed properly. It's not a subtle effect. Massive errors will occur. The file recieved will be corrupted and most likely refuse to open.

My point is, only broken optical cables can make audible changes to the sound.