Optical Toslink?

[UltraFast69]

Years ago, I used Optical cables in my Home Theater System well before High End Audio. Since that time, my appreciation of cabling has developed to the point of sickness. Anyway, many of us are aware of Optical filters from reading, writing, commenting about.

I started to wonder about the open Optical slot out of my Transport and the open optical in of my DAC.

I am going to do a test using an older Audioquest Optical cable. I have the ability to go back and forth toggling the input on the remote control between the Digital Coaxial cable and the Optical cable.

From my understanding, HDMI has taken over perhaps from a production standpoint as its more economical to use one cable versus two, but I would think that’s more related to the A/V portion of the industry. I recall Nordost used to make an Optical cable, and does not anymore, but not sure the reason, and I hear Audioquest Diamond is supposed to be the cats meow still in production.

I am wondering what the Optical Toslink connection will do in performance? Does it compare to the Gigafoil, TS Link and other systems that are out there?

Gonna still try it, but any comments?

[Darrel]

The only optical toslink cable I use these days is from my Panasonic Plasma tv to the NAD M12. I'm looking at replacing the Plasma this year to I think the Samsung Q90 which uses a toslink for audio out other than HDMI cable. I'll be interested in your findings.

[Mr Peabody]

To my understanding the various digital ins/outs aren't standard in quality across brands. For instance, one may say their AES/BU is best, one might say the coax etc.

I did an A/B between AES/BU and coaxial using same brand/series cables and found the AES/BU quite a bit better.

I just don't use optical, it will be interesting to see what you find.

As a side note HDMI has wider bandwidth, for audio, video, several channels of coding etc. I'd have to check to see the audio limits, if any, for optical or coax.

[wklie]

I am wondering what the Optical Toslink connection will do in performance? Does it compare to the Gigafoil, TS Link and other systems that are out there?

In a typical traditional DAC implementation S/PDIF clock is slaved to the source and is susceptible to interference, which is the reason why different digital cables sound different. Optical conversion adds jitter, therefore traditionally audiophiles have found that AES and coaxial usually sound better than Toslink. (Exception: Some DAC designers claim they have perfected their DAC reclocking and therefore suggest toslink over other inputs.) Optical network (which I think is good as reflected in our flagship product and adopted by another manufacturer recently) has different considerations because at least in theory, jitter does not matter for packetized audio to be played by a network DAC using its own clock.

By the way, some audiophiles prefer glass toslink cable to plastic toslink cable.

HDMI audio is inherently disadvantaged for 2-channel audio playback due to its clock design. Not talking about I2S over HDMI, which is a completely different thing.

[UltraFast69]

Well this was a waste of time, and I knew better but could not help myself.

The optical cable I used was the Optilink1 from Audioquest, and this by no way could hold any ground against my current Coaxial cable, but I was more interested if it had any remnants of the Optical Filter I am using.

WKLIE - Peter, thanks for the input. You have more experience than I do being a part of the industry, but I still can’t help think if the Audioquest Vodka or Diamond may change things up, my DAC is no slouch. I will be stupid and source the Vodka out of curiosity in the upcoming weeks.

[wklie]

The optical cable I used was the Optilink1 from Audioquest, and this by no way could hold any ground against my current Coaxial cable, but I was more interested if it had any remnants of the Optical Filter I am using.

Regardless of what toslink cable you're using, if you feel that coaxial sounds better obviously, I'd guess that no toslink cable upgrade will change the result.

I hope you can return the cable in case you are not satisfied with it.

Have you tried AES? In many setup it's much more promising.

[Nikhil]

If you are going with optical, I would recommend LIFATEC

http://www.lifatec.com/toslink2.html


Good luck with your search!



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[UltraFast69]

Regardless of what toslink cable you're using, if you feel that coaxial sounds better obviously, I'd guess that no toslink cable upgrade will change the result.

I hope you can return the cable in case you are not satisfied with it.

Have you tried AES? In many setup it's much more promising.

In the current setup, Coaxial sounds better, but the cable I have a handful of these in a drawer that must be 10 years old, and not up to spec so I am thinking, so taking it back to the drawer is no issue

The DACs AES input is connected with the Aurender.

Note, this exercise is me just being curious and playing around to see if one could get the same results from Toslink after hearing the results of an Optical filter




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[UltraFast69]

If you are going with optical, I would recommend LIFATEC

http://www.lifatec.com/toslink2.html


Good luck with your search!



.

Thanks Nikhil, I’ll check them out. It’s an assumption but I’m guessing you have experience with this maker?


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[wklie]

If you are going with optical, I would recommend LIFATEC

http://www.lifatec.com/toslink2.html

Glass.

[Elberoth]

Did you disconnect the coax cable while testing the TosLink optical one ?

One of the advantages of the optical cable comes from the galvanic isolation it offers vs electrical cables (be it coax or AES). When you keep your coax plugged in, you keep the ground connection between your transport and DAC, basicly stripping the TosLink cable from this technical advantage.

[UltraFast69]

Did you disconnect the coax cable while testing the TosLink optical one ?

One of the advantages of the optical cable comes from the galvanic isolation it offers vs electrical cables (be it coax or AES). When you keep your coax plugged in, you keep the ground connection between your transport and DAC, basicly stripping the TosLink cable from this technical advantage.

No I did not, I was A/B connections using the DAC remote.

I will disconnect tonight and try again ad listen to what happens, thanks for the reply and tip!




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[aKnyght]

If you are going with optical, I would recommend LIFATEC

http://www.lifatec.com/toslink2.html

+1 !!!

i used this cable in a prior system configuration with great results. still use it as a secondary input.

absolutely the highest quality optical cable on the market... pretty much twice the specs at half the cost of other glass optical audio cables i was able to discover: 470(!) optical glass (borosilicate) fibers with each fiber end polished to a 1 micron optical finish (as opposed to fitting a lens over the bundle end as in other cables). a three foot cable is $119.

[UltraFast69]

+1 !!!

i used this cable in a prior system configuration with great results. still use it as a secondary input.

absolutely the highest quality optical cable on the market... pretty much twice the specs at half the cost of other glass optical audio cables i was able to discover: 470(!) optical glass (borosilicate) fibers with each fiber end polished to a 1 micron optical finish (as opposed to fitting a lens over the bundle end as in other cables). a three foot cable is $119.

Darn it, I’ll buy it to check out of curiosity but still compare to the Audioquest Vodka, maybe Diamond, I’ll leave it up to Suncoast Mike.


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[UltraFast69]

I satisfied my curiosity, and ordered a 1M Lifatec, it arrived in 3 days, very fast. The purpose was two fold:

- learn a bit more about optical and why one is better than the other
- free up the Digital out on the Transport where my Nordost QKore grounding cable works slightly better.

Lifatec constructs a nice USA built cable, but it gave me no dynamics for my 2 Channel High End Audio System in comparison to the Digital Coaxial it was to challenge, so no gain in knowledge other than Toslink takes a step back to other connections and back to the Analog Out for the Nordost grounding cable.

No Harm, No Foul, Thanks Everyone for the recommendation!




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[Rnrmf]

Ditto. I had one arrive about two weeks ago. I was comparing to a 280 strand glass fiber cable that was under $30 (from an out of business company) that I always felt was pretty good. I didn't find that the Lifatec really brought much to the table performance-wise, in comparison to what I have. But in terms of handling, finishing, and performance for an optical cable, it's very nice. I'm going to return the one I purchased but if I needed an optical cable, I'd pick up another one.
I still wonder what the Audioquest Diamond's performance is like at $600 for a 1.5m length, though.

[UltraFast69]

Ditto. I had one arrive about two weeks ago. I was comparing to a 280 strand glass fiber cable that was under $30 (from an out of business company) that I always felt was pretty good. I didn't find that the Lifatec really brought much to the table performance-wise, in comparison to what I have. But in terms of handling, finishing, and performance for an optical cable, it's very nice. I'm going to return the one I purchased but if I needed an optical cable, I'd pick up another one.
I still wonder what the Audioquest Diamond's performance is like at $600 for a 1.5m length, though.

I’ll admit, I do as well but gonna put this on the back burner for now.


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