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.

Word; thanks for all the input everyone, just to be sure I AB'd them again, using a different cd and movie... and for gods sakes, it sounded the same. I was a twit and used a dvd that was in stereo...I think the receiver switched to the DPL II mode for the Coax before and not the toslink ... go figure! But the subwoofer doesnt have any noise now (which is a welcome change) so I think Ill keep that cable

The only time TOSlink will sound worse (that is what you said, right?) is if you lube the cable with peanut butter before connecting it.

Do not use peanut butter.

For anything.

Not even eating.

George Washington Carver was a heretic.

Bren R.

Let's not forget that RF noise can be a problem with digital coax over long runs. RF noise can be found in runs as short as 10 feet in coax. This is not a problem with optical. Other then that, either or will work and sound exactly the same.

I prefer to use coax as my runs are short and the connection is far better then optical.

Yeah, some toslink connections don't give you a satisfying "click" and it seems a dust bunny could dislodge the cable.

Alan has some thoughts about it here along the lines of what most everyone has said.

www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tech&Number=48577&page=27&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=

Thanks for the replies everyone, I got my 90$ back, it felt kinda weird going in there and saying I didnt hear a difference they sounded surprised, and surmised the problem to possibly be 'lamp wire' to my speakers - Im not so sure about that I use 14 awg for all my speakers, made by acoustic research, and its kinda nice, seems to do the job...the guys there said something possibly about the rubber stuff surrounding the wire to be kinda crappy or something, I cant remember, perhaps Ill buy some Axiom speaker wire now that I have a credit card

Unless you are doing really long runs (> 50 ft) your wire will be just fine. As far as I know the rubber just serves to insolate it (others more knowledgable I'm sure will correct me if wrong).

Based on your first experince with these guys over the misinfo on the Toslink vs coaxial cable, they don't seem to know much so I wouldn't take their comments to seriously.

Sounds more as though the sales people have a greater understanding of psychology than they do of electronics.

Yeah, I think I would avoid that store from now on.

Or a greater desire for profit.

I defer to P.T. Barnum.

As for the Axiom wire... I'm now up to 3 empty 50ft spools of it. Does it sound any better than the pink jacketed copper I had in there before? Of course not.

It IS easy to work with, the insulation is really supple, and it's got the Axiom imprint for some cool factor.

Over half of mine is above the acoustic ceiling, but the cool factor is still there for any spiders or what have you crawling around up there.

Bren R.

i have a squirrel that has gotten up in my attic. all he gets to see is the 14 gauge, .25 cents a foot cheap stuff from Home Depot!!

i have put up some poison to run him off, but i dont think he has taken the bait. once i do get him out, i gotta go figure how he got in, and plug up the hole. damn varmints.

bigjohn

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once i do get him out, i gotta go figure how he got in, and plug up the hole.

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.......(letting it slide)... too easy.

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too easy

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what? no pet shop boys reference...

bigjohn

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.......(letting it slide)... too easy.

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I'm starting to think the only thing more disturbing than BigJohn's port obsession is Ash's obsession with his obsession.

Bren R.

Well thanks again for the replies - the guy said something about the insulation of the wire, he said if it was softer and sort of bend back from being pushed on it helped with the conductivity of the wires, and he said something about phase too lol I cant remember all of it. In general they are really nice guys there thoguh, other than the wire they havent pushed me to buy another more expensive where it didnt need to be - ie I asked them if I should trade up from my AVR225 to the 235 (or was it 230) on display for like 720$ and they said I shouldnt bother, even if the newer ones have Component switching and other fancy features. Besides I like their used stuff They give me deals everytime I go in there and actually take the time to explain everything, pehaps Ill just turn a deaf ear onto them when they start going on about speaker wire?

My very close friends that are in the audio design and setup business for the richy riches told me to use coax because optical has to convert the signal where coax does not.

Optical goes from a digital signal to optical to digital again, whereas coax is a digital signal all the way. At least that is what they told me and it kind of seems to make sense. They didn't say that there was any sound difference though. Just seemed more efficient to not convert the signal at all.

Also, I got a lovely coax cable from cablewholesale.com for next to nothing. Like 8 bucks. And it is a really nice looking well put together cable. I couldn't believe the audible difference going from analog to digital.

More like electrical to optical and optical to electrical. It's all digital. Let me tell you, if they didn't have that little conversion down, most large networks wouldn't work. And it's WAY more important to have good data going over data networks than good data going between audio components.

Yah that's what I meant.

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I'm starting to think the only thing more disturbing than BigJohn's port obsession is Ash's obsession with his obsession.

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HEY! i only have a problem if i ADMIT it!

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Yeah, some toslink connections don't give you a satisfying "click" and it seems a dust bunny could dislodge the cable.

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Actually it has more to do with the fact that I tend to move my stuff around a fair bit. With coax I get a better connection and it never moves. I can't say the same for optical............but your sarcasm is noted none the less.

NeverHappy, ease out of defensive mode a smidge. I was not trying to be sarcastic. I was simply exaggerating to emphasize the unsecure nature of some toslink connections.

Sorry, but I seem to be defending myself in more then one thread around here these day's that you are involved in.

I'm honestly not sure how to take your posts anymore...........but I will stop thinking defense.

I have to say that if I have a audio problem, the first place I look is the toslink. Must be those gremlins.

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More like electrical to optical and optical to electrical. It's all digital.

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Yes. From what I understand, it's a little like morse code. Electrically, in a digital coax cable, this means that sending an electron down the pipe means "1" while absenceof an electron means "0". This, I believe, is an over simplification, but essentially, that is how it works. With the Toslink, essentially you have "light on" equals "1" while "light off" equals "0".

Both translate the source code, but do so in a perfect way - whereas with analog to digital, and vice-versa, there are always extrapolations or abbreviations that must be made, creating errors that degrade the sound.

In the end, if a toslink and a digital cable successfully carry the little "1's" and "0's" to the DAC, then the cable has perfectly done its job. Then, its up to the DAC to perform is math and figure what the sound should be.

If distance were not an issue, I would bet the farm on both sounding identical. In fact, some of my "digital" connections are being made with the el-cheapo spaghetti wire that came with my components. I figure if ther are sending the signal, all's well. I have not had any drop-outs or what I would diagnose as digital noise/static since hooking up the digital connections this way. (Saved some green, too)

I have used both (both cables were 6') on the same set-up and I couldn't see a difference.

The only difference I could see was that maybe the coax cable seemed a litte more durable????

But if your optical cable has gold-plated collars, then it's guaranteed to sound better.

Think about that for a second. Gold-plated collars. So the light moves better. Mmm hmm. Yeah.