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

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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.

In reply to:

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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.