Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Is it true that Coaxial is better than Toslink?

I went to my local hifi store and they told me that the toslink wasnt nearly as good as the Coax line, so they let me borrow a 90$ one (which is like their cheapest ) and I think Im sold...it sounds a lot fuller than it did before, specially when im playing music cds....am I crazy?

My understanding is that either one just conveys 1's and 0's; I don't understand how there could possibly be an audible difference. I'm not saying there isn't one - I'm saying I don't understand.

You're not crazy, you just carried the impressions you were given my the salesmen into the listening session and they influenced your perceptions.

Both optical and copper digital cables carry ones and zeroes. If they are connected well and are used within their limits, then there should be absolutely no difference. A 1 or 0 going in one end of the cable will always be a 1 or 0 on the other end. In other words, a digital cable will either pass a signal or it won't. There's not much room for gray area.

lol crap. So would I be best off getting a refund?

maybe it does sound better for certain reasons, but in theory they are the same.

maybe the toslink connection in one of your units isn't good. maybe your fiber cable is no good. who knows.

but in theory, they are the same. personally, i have never heard the difference using 3 diferent players on my receiver.

I wondered the same; had mine hooked up with a crappy old RCA cable.

Went to Best Buy, Future Shop, WalMart, and RadioShack looking for an optical cable. The cheapest I could find was $29.95. Some were over a $100!!!

Went to Sayal Electronics in Toronto and picked up a 3 foot combined TOSLINK/SVIDEO cable for $3.99. If you bought 5 you got them for $3.49 each. The label on them says Radio Shack. They even had some nicer looking dual COAX/TOSLINK cables on sale for $7.99.

Hooked it up and didn't notice a difference.
I don't think the $100 cable would have either.

Dammit I think I will just bring her back then - save myself 90 bones and buy something else ! Im keeping that subwoofer cable that I bought tho lol

does a sub cable carry an analog signal or digital?

because if it's analog then a slightly better cable would be better than the cheapy $2 ones that usually come with low end electronics.

Sub cable is analog, pretty much the same signal level you get from CD player to receiver, preamp to power amp etc...

The big deal with sub cables, I guess, is that you can hear hum quite well so getting a decent cable for a longer run is probably worth a few extra $$

Yes, Adam, you'd be wise to take that $90 cable back and just thank them instead of buying it. As previous replies have indicated, there's no basic quality difference between the coaxial and optical connections. One possible explanation for your impression is that the output levels of the optical and coaxial outputs can be slightly different and the slightly louder one might have sounded "fuller" to you, but a small volume adjustment would have the same effect.