• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Cheap Toslink vs Expensive Toslink?

S

speedboxx

n00b
Joined
Jul 28, 2005
Messages
5
Hey
I would like to connect more components to my reciever via Toslink (since my only Coaxial input is taken up). I was doing some price comparisions and there seems to be a huge price difference among Toslink cables. I also did some research and there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why a cheap Toslink cable would sound worse than an expensive cable, assuming the signal gets through. I am thinking that maybe I will just go out and buy the cheapest cable I can find. So I am wondering, are there any problems with this?
 
If you've got $20-30 to spend on the cables, grab some Dayton, Acoustic Research, or Phoenix Gold Toslinks, best bang for the buck cables. Avoid anything higher (Monster cable) since it's all marketing BS above that, and no difference in sound.
 
Toslink wise, I don't trust Monster Cable. One of the only reasons why I would buy them was for cloth-fibers wrapping the wire - peace of mind for protection of the actual cable.


However, I have heard demos of Audioquest toslink cables and I have noticed a difference between Acoustic Research and Audioquest. IMHO, and I stress that, I noticed a much clearer bass, and the highs were a bit clearer.

Audioquest's cheapest toslink runs at 45 dollars for one meter.

That said, I did not notice much difference between the lowest Audioquest toslink and the highest one, however, I would buy the medium grade just for the outer protection.
 
so toslink quality makes a difference in sound? what about other cables? Coxial cable quality? Composite cable quality? Component cable quality? Speaker cable quality?
 
Cheap toslink cables tend to be made of plastic while the better ones are made of glass. I have tried both in my headphone rig. Can't really say that I heard a difference, but I was too lazy to do a direct comparison swapping out cables behind my computer.
 
It's a digital bitstream signal, so there is absolutley no difference in quality.
 
I once had a salesgoon try to convince me that I needed a monster cable optical audio cable.

IT IS A DIGITAL SIGNAL. EITHER IT WORKS OR IT DOES NOT.

Simple. End of story. If your cable cant get bits from one end to the other in a reliable manner the receiver will either do nothing, or if it is a cheap one it will make the most ungodly noise you’ve ever heard. (Something akin to loud TV static mixed with sound of a chainsaw cutting sheet metal. Its probably a result of a cheap decoder passing on bad, random data to the DAC)
If the problem is intermittent you’ll hear VERY noticeable pauses or clicks or stutters. You’ll notice. Even in this event, the problem will have to be severe. I’ll bet that the protocol has some form of error correction (like any other digital protocol nowadays) so you can miss the odd bit or two without effect.

It’s a digital link, its designed to parse, encode, and transmit data intact and have it end up on the other side exactly as you sent it. Anything but that should yield and error state. I don’t know why the makes of audio cables seem to think otherwise.

The only reason you’d want a more expensive cable is length or strength or durability. Some are simply clear plastic fibers dipped in more black plastic. They work fine, but might break easier.
 
these cables are for digital signals, i dont think the attenuation on a 2 m cable will be enough to cause a significant change in bit error rate
 
speedboxx said:
Thanks for your replies. I really don't understand why a glass fibre would yield better sound quality than a plastic as long as the signal gets through. The cheapest cable I could find was $9.99CDN, which is what I will buy. I don't need the extra durability of anything expensive.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/index....dProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=4342&SID=
Click to expand...

I am no expert on this, but I believe glass refracts light better than plastic. I took a intro course to this my freshman year, but slept through most of it (oops!). Has something to do with how the light is refracted (that optical effect you see when you put a object in water and it looks bent).
 
If you are still looking for a decent toslink cable, go to your local FYE and look for the Philips M62794. I got mine for $10 and it's 6 feet long. I use it on my Audigy2 ZS and I love it.
 
rayman2k2 said:
However, I have heard demos of Audioquest toslink cables and I have noticed a difference between Acoustic Research and Audioquest. IMHO, and I stress that, I noticed a much clearer bass, and the highs were a bit clearer.
Click to expand...
Unless done in a blind test(you do nto know which i sbing used) your opinion means nothing as it is tainted.


I have been in dosens of BLIND listening tests, from speaker cables to power cables to digital cables(Tos, coax) and noticed NO DIFFERENCE. That is right, cat5 twisted speaker cables that cost $10.00 to make yourself sound no better than one thousand dollar speaker cables.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top