What are the advantages of optical sound?

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ProjectChaos

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Just as the topic states, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having an optical hookup? Or is there is a better way to hook up your sound. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
The only tangible advantage of optical output is that it lets you directly send the digital signal out to an external optical reciever/DAC. You can get good quality sound IF your external DAC is of similarly good quality.
 
If I understand it right, optical isn't subject to noise and interference, either.
 
Unless your optical DACs are integrated into your speakers, you'll still need to run the analog signal from the DAC to your speakers anyway. It'll only make a noticeable difference if you use much less analog cable by switching to optical.
 
Well if you're planning an expensive, full-fledged audio system it may be worth the effort, but otherwise I wouldn't bother unless it happens to be convenient (i.e. you already have the ability on your speakers). You're not likely to notice the difference on lower end equipment anyway.
 
Optical doesn't have much of an advantage over coaxial, at least for short runs. It is the same digital signal going over the line. Optical is a bit more succeptible to jitter; coaxial is a bit more succeptible to interference.
 
Originally posted by jpmkm
Optical doesn't have much of an advantage over coaxial, at least for short runs. It is the same digital signal going over the line. Optical is a bit more succeptible to jitter; coaxial is a bit more succeptible to interference.
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He's got it :)
 
He's got it :)
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Except he left the part about an optical connection having that whole galvanic isolation thing. ;)
The S/PDIF optical interface is imune to ground loops. :)
 
Originally posted by xonik
Link to galvanic isolation info?
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I second that. I've experienced ground loop problems with analog connections but never with digital connections. I guess I have just never thought about that.
 
My favorite attribute about optical sound: 1 wire.
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What are you talking about, all digital transfers are 1 wire. Unless you're comparing it to analog out, which you can't, two different animals there.


I can't see how it would be a advantage in computer audio. Chances are if you're in computer audio, your sound card is going to have a better DAC then your reciever or stand alone DAC. In the end all audio is going to be converted to analog so doesn't make much sense to transfer with optical or spdif unless you have a better external DAC.
 
Originally posted by PoorGuyInNeed
Chances are if you're in computer audio, your sound card is going to have a better DAC then your reciever or stand alone DAC.
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I really doubt that, at least for consumer-level sound cards.
 
Unless someone here has a 500+ dollar external DAC here, which then, you shouldn't even be in the computer audio section.

Edit: damnmit, why is this thread so hot when I decided to edit my post.
 
...but you didn't specify which soundcard somebody "in computer audio" would be using. Of course, if you had come out and said "Audigy 2 ZS" or "Revolution 7.1" or "Aureon 7.1 Space," etc. etc. we'd readily agree with you.

edit: Okay, whatever.
 
Well if someone was planning to transfer sound out of their computer via optical out and still in the computer audio section, I would think their sound card would be atleast a audigy2 (given it has optical out and they care enough about sound to ask this)and have a external dac not in high triple digit numbers (since they are asking this question).
 
Originally posted by PoorGuyInNeed
Unless someone here has a 500+ dollar external DAC here, which then, you shouldn't even be in the computer audio section.
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Umm.. what? Since when is it a prerequisite that none of us can have nice external DACs? If you hook a DAC up to a computer, then it is computer audio.

Even if we disregard DAC quality, external DACs have a clear advantage over sound card DACs in regards to interference. There are a lot of high speed digital signals inside a computer and they can all interfere with the analog output on the sound card. If you just pull a straight digital stream out of the computer and convert it externally then you don't have all that interference. You have a DAC in an audio environment, not a computer environment, so there is more safeguarding against interference.
 
because you guys are asking it in a computer audio section, and I wouldn't think someone with a 500+ DAC would ask this question. Plus isn't this forum limited to stuff under 400dollars or something?


And you do know there our sound cards out there that will school on DAC in the muti thousand dollar mark. There are soundcard with over 115db SNR. A decent sound card like A2 or revo will beat out any external dac in it's price range.
 
Link to galvanic isolation info?
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Common sense does not apply here?
A fiber optic cable is neither electrically conductive or inductive so the source and destination devices are galvanically isolated from each other. ;)


Plus isn't this forum limited to stuff under 400dollars or something?
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lololololol.
Wouldn't be a very [H]ardforum then would it?
Seriously, think about it for a second.
If we had any such restriction there would be no point.


And you do know there our sound cards out there that will school on DAC in the muti thousand dollar mark. There are soundcard with over 115db SNR. A decent sound card like A2 or revo will beat out any external dac in it's price range.
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That is the biggest load of hockey pucks I have ever read.
Can you please offer up some validation for this claim?
In case you don't know I am from Missouri..... Which, if you don't know is the show me state.
You got to show me don't tell me. ;)
 
Originally posted by X86Dude
Common sense does not apply here?
A fiber optic cable is neither electrically conductive or inductive so the source and destination devices are galvanically isolated from each other. ;)
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It's not that I don't believe you :rolleyes: Can you provide linkage so that I can learn more? :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
Hey I'm from missouri too, and I think you both can do a bit of showing. About the dac and about the ground loop problem. I am aware of the concept of galvanic isolation, I just didn't know it caused a problem with digital connections. I always associated it with analog connections. I'm curious now.
 
Ok its my sound system thaat project chaos was talking about I finally got into the forums, but anyway my problems are now...

I got audigy 2 plat. and I got good set of Logitech z-680 and have choice for optical or not. I wanna just know if I should go with optical or not mind you I am into this mostly for gaming.

and Is there any other products I should pickup maybe that would help or benifit the sound ?


links suggestions all helpful.

Thnx
Jon
 
Use the analog outputs, you'll thank me later.

edit: Not to mention that you probably won't get any output through the optical out while you're gaming, because the Audigy 2 Platinum does not do on-the-fly AC3 encoding.
 
ok I give it a shot. I apreciate everyones feedback and comments the info is very useful. I seen some kids around have like Equalizers to adjust even more etc.. things like that I didnt know if someone was gonna suggest something like that also to help out sound. Im not new to computers but I am so Im reading and learning as much as I can. infact this comp now was just put together last week by Projectchaos and I helped as much as I could. so yea thnx for help anything else i need to know post away.

and I am thinking maybe 4 to 5 months I may upgrade the soundcard. stick to 1.5 or just go all out?
 
Sorry, I'm still not satisfied. :D I was looking for something more along the lines of what problems arise when you have a ground loop problem with a digital interconnect. In analog systems you can get a pretty nice buzzing when you have a ground loop problem since there is an external waveform being injected on the signal lines(or something to that effect), but what happens to a digital system? The digital signal is either present or not present, so how does the ground loop affect it? All I can think of is that the ground loop would make the digital signal so noisy that the receiver just couldn't make sense of it. I'm not trying to shoot you down or anything; I am just trying to understand this. btw, epanorama is one of my favourite sites. I can spend hours there.
 
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