[blawhh]

Does all optical out sound the same? aka 1$ cd player with optical out vs $10000 cd player with optical out


thanks

 

[Steve Eddy]

Dunno.

Unless one has shown that there are audible differences, then all one can say is "Dunno."

k

 

[plonter]

I asked once about the diferences between optical and coaxial cables, and i was told that when using an optical out, the player converts the coaxial stream to optical (light) and that sometimes low bodget cd/dvd players can do that conversion not effieciently enough and "make mistakes" ...and that can cause jitter and stuff like that. I don't know if it is totally true,but there is something in to it.

 

[blawhh]

oo thanks for the input guys

 

[plonter]

I am using a cheap pioneer dvd (80$) for 8 monthes now, and using it's optical output and no problems at all. I can't compare it to more expensive cd player because i never had one, but i am very interested in trying sometime just to see if there is an improvement on sound.

I guess that the better the dac the more you can compromise on the transport.

 

[DanielCox]

I doubt it. The sound has to be sampled first - the difference between the two systems would be the quality of the equipment inside for transporting and sampling that sound for transmission down an optical cable.

However the actual optical out probably won't be a whole lot different.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanielCox /img/forum/go_quote.gif I doubt it. The sound has to be sampled first - the difference between the two systems would be the quality of the equipment inside for transporting and sampling that sound for transmission down an optical cable. However the actual optical out probably won't be a whole lot different.

can you explain please what are you reffering to?

 

[DanielCox]

Sure.
Because an optical connection (and SPDIF) is digital analogue sound has to be converted to a digital format before transmission. I speculate this is where the difference in cost lies as higher quality sampling will be used. The actual optical connection is cheap to make as laser diodes used for toslink are pennies a dozen.

 

[Nerull]

It's not a laser diode, it's a simple LED.
Chances are, if they're using the same stuff, they'll sound the same (generally a TORX17x TOSLINK receiver / transmitter). A better test would be comparing the coaxial vs optical.

I had switched out a TOSLINK cable for a coaxial one in my mom's Sony HT and the result was pretty astounding. My mom even noticed. I had only switched them out because I wanted my optical cable back. After a bit of A/Bing, we stuck with the coax. At the time though, I had no idea why one was significantly better than the other, that even my mom noticed.

I had to find out why (this was when I was relatively unaware of audio). It simply came down to jitter. I want to perform a few measurements myself, admittedly, but haven't gotten around to it yet. TOSLINK and coax is cheap enough though, so why don't you try a little fiddling around with it?

~Thomas