[archosman]

Coax digital out or Optical digital out? Is one better than the other or are they about the same?

 

[Trawlerman]

The genral concensus of oinion is that an Electrical Digital output is better than an Optical Digital output.

The reason that Optical is deemed to be the lesser of two is that it starts off on the board as an Elecfrical signal and has to converted to optical, then fired down a (more often than not, cheap quality) plastic or glass optical cable then converted back at the other end.

An Electrical connection doesn't have to go through any conversions between equipment. It does have the disadvantage of being very picky cable-wise and must have proper 75 Ohms connections and cable makeup to ensure proper signal transfer without having significant error corrections at the receive end. Optical connections have the advantage of being able to have longer lengths without any undue loss.

However, many high-end manufacturers include Optical connections. My Krell MD10 has both optical and electrical connections and I have found very little difference between the two.

Personally, I tend to think the Electrical connections provide a more solid connection but I don't have a preference.





Sound As Ever

 

[lini]

Generally spoken, the first should sound better because of less jitter, while the second is better for connecting components with emi problems (computers for example...).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[dave-the-rave]

This very question was examined at the way-cool 6moons audio site. Go to

 

[Trawlerman]

Interesting link Dave-The-Rave. Thanks for that man.

I don't know if you guys are interested In this or not. I recently tried a little experiment with my rig.

Krell MD10 Transport
Chord ProDac 75Ohm Digital cable
Krell Studio DAC
Nordost Red Dawn i/c
Audiolab 8000q
Nordost rEd Dawn i/c
Tube Tech Genesis Monoblock amplifiers
Qed Genesis Silver Spiral spkr cable with WBT connections
ProAc Response 1SC

Now this is not a new rig by any means, with most components reaching the 10 year old mark. It is however, quite a detailed rig and more than capable of showing up differences in cables etc.




My interest in messing with the digital cabling and signal path was whetted by jitter buster that I had seen on Ebay. I won my bid and eagerly awaited my new toy. A Theta TLC

When it came I set it up with an Electrical Digital cable - a Chord ProDac - from my Transport and the reclocked signal was fed to my DAC with another Electrical Digital cable - a Mountain Snow Atlas (rebadges Ecosse). The results were disappoining to say the least. Far from removing jitter it actually increased it!

The mids were more congested, treble was a little tizzy and bass response a little sloppy not to mention the imaging that had smeared. Something was clearly amiss. A quick search of the 'net brought a few answers. In this configuration the so-called jitterbuster actually creates a good deal more jitter than ever before.

So I rewired the TLC with an Optical Digital cable (a Monster Lightspeed 200) from my Transport to the input and fed the output to my DAC with an Electrical Digital cable - a Chord ProDac. Once I did this things sounded much much better. The bass tightened up a bit, imaging became much pinpoint, the midrange congestion cleared up and the treble sweetened considerably.

Speaking to a few people and poking around inside a little, a conclusion was drawn that because of a common ground between input and output, the unit wan't working to spec. Once the common grounds were changed the problems disappeared and said unit was then working impeccably.



After a month I took the unit out and put the rig back together with a straight digital connection between the Tranport and DAC, but the only difference this time being that I used the Optical connection with the Monster Lightspeed 200 being presses into service. The gains from the TLC obviously disappeared but the sound was as before when I was just using the Electrical Digital connections.

My personal view is that the Toslink Optical Digital connection is just as worthy as an Electrical connection. YMMV





Sound As Ever

listening to Stacey Kent - Dreamsville

 

[Calanctus]

I A/B'd a TOSLINK optical cable that has gotten a few very positive reviews on AA (the Wireworld Supernova III+) with an Elco coaxial cable. The Supernova had slightly better, airier highs, with a bit more detail, but could be a touch harsher on worse recordings. The overall difference was pretty small.