I find TOSLINK sound to be flat and lifeless compare to COAX. If you have coax output use that instead and you may like the sound better.
Well if the sound is flat(referring to freq response). It's being transmitted perfectly. 1's and 0's are sent as electronic pulses. You are correct they are lifeless lol.
A 1 will always be a 1. It can't be 1.000001. Digital signals work or they don't work. There is no in between.
You can't make a digital signal sound better than it is.
For each individual bit,yes. for a whole song you can make it worse by dropping or a miscalculation of the ecc circuits because of a faulty cable causing a high bit error rate. (BER)
[quote author=thepcguy board=accessories thread=22639 post=371342 time=1328928293] If 1/0 transporting was so perfect, why don't cheap HDMI cables perform just the same as high end HDMI cables? All the bits just don't make the trip. For whatever reason.
I honestly hope you were kidding on this matter because if not, you are 100% wrong I'm afraid. Monoprice $5 cables are completely fine for any HT system and work just as good as ANY higher priced cables. The ONLY time that cables may fail is length of the run without a line booster or a psychical defect.
Just google the subject and you'll see all the different articles with the tests.
You're aiming at the wrong target. I'm in agreement that good $5 cables perform the same as $200 cables. AS LONG AS all the bits make the trip. Optical to electrical modems are not all equal and that is the point. When the run is 3 feet or less, why put 2 more devices in the path when direct electrical connection is available?
Cheaper cables will lose bits, or double them up, or mirror them, or ghost them. An example would be Cat5 vs Cat 6. These cables are virtually identical. Cat 6 will have better signal integrity over Cat5. Integrity meaning delivery of bits as intended.
I've had to replace thousands of feet of inferior cable and change out many devices that couldn't deliver good data. No one notices 1% loss. Make that 2% and the you would think the world was ending!
I honestly hope you were kidding on this matter because if not, you are 100% wrong I'm afraid. Monoprice $5 cables are completely fine for any HT system and work just as good as ANY higher priced cables. The ONLY time that cables may fail is length of the run without a line booster or a psychical defect.
Just google the subject and you'll see all the different articles with the tests.
You're aiming at the wrong target. I'm in agreement that good $5 cables perform the same as $200 cables. AS LONG AS all the bits make the trip. Optical to electrical modems are not all equal and that is the point. When the run is 3 feet or less, why put 2 more devices in the path when direct electrical connection is available?
Cheaper cables will lose bits, or double them up, or mirror them, or ghost them. An example would be Cat5 vs Cat 6. These cables are virtually identical. Cat 6 will have better signal integrity over Cat5. Integrity meaning delivery of bits as intended.
I've had to replace thousands of feet of inferior cable and change out many devices that couldn't deliver good data. No one notices 1% loss. Make that 2% and the you would think the world was ending!
I thought we were talking about HDMI cables? I'm not talking about any other cable. You said "why don't cheap HDMI cables perform the same as a high end HDMI cable? all the bits just don't make the trip, for whatever reason" That sure sound like you're saying that cheap HDMI cables are not as good as expensive ones. There are tests that prove under 20 feet, a monoprice vs ultralink/monster cables are bit perfect to each other. Would that mean the bit are getting there if they were tested bit perfect?
I thought we were talking about HDMI cables? I'm not talking about any other cable. You said "why don't cheap HDMI cables perform the same as a high end HDMI cable? all the bits just don't make the trip, for whatever reason" That sure sound like you're saying that cheap HDMI cables are not as good as expensive ones. There are tests that prove under 20 feet, a monoprice vs ultralink/monster cables are bit perfect to each other. Would that mean the bit are getting there if they were tested bit perfect?
We are talking about optical vs coax. My HDMI example was in reference to what a lot of people have experienced - me included - that lock loss and drop outs were very common with lower priced cables. Once I (we) switched to a better built cable, these issues mostly went away. The entire point was related to bit errors and how the signal audio/video can be degraded by same. It happens. And the speculation was that the electrical to optical through a fiber then optical back to electrical CAN degrade the signal. I simply said that there could be something in the chain that might be causing the TOSLINK to not sound as good as the coax. Nothing more than that.
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 5,377 Location: NORTH CAROLINA
Re: Glass Toslink Cables « Reply #26 on Feb 11, 2012, 11:42pm »
Twenty to thirty years ago there was a difference in the sound quality between using toslink versus coax digital connections. This was primarily because the vendors showed a preference for one over the other and even though they provided both connectors they took short cuts on one of them. Depending on who you bought from, they showed a strong preference for optical or for coax digital, so sometimes digital showed large differences in the quality of their implementations.
Today, I find that the implementations are well balanced in the same piece of equipment. It seems that a number of Lounge members feel that optical is inherently inferior to coax. In reality, optical is superior to coax, but with the length of the cable runs and the frequencies used for consumer audio installations it is not significant.
Check out hospital equipment and aero-space industry and you will find that optical digital is used almost solely. It is more reliable and is not subject to electrical interference, as is coax digital. My son is an aero-space engineer and all of their satellites use optical digital exclusively; and, of course they use nothing but highly polished glass fiber optical wiring.
For audio/video purposes, there shouldn't be any difference in sound quality unless the manufacturer intentionally takes short cuts in one area versus the other, as long as you use decent build quality in the cables and the connectors. Something I learned years ago, is if you are in a noisy electrical environment, optical digital is immune to ground loop hum.
« Last Edit: Feb 11, 2012, 11:46pm by roadrunner »
Re: Glass Toslink Cables « Reply #27 on Feb 12, 2012, 1:33am »
^ Toslink maybe superior in some application but when it comes to home audio it suffer from high jitter compare to coax. To prove this I went ahead and invite same people with good ear and brought music they know well. We connect both toslink and coaxial. There were 6 of us this time and everyone of us feels coax sounds full and more natural. Three listeners conclude that toslink sound like AM radio. I comment that sound was dull and low-fi. Six people can't all have defective ears.
^ Toslink maybe superior in some application but when it comes to home audio it suffer from high jitter compare to coax. To prove this I went ahead and invite same people with good ear and brought music they know well. We connect both toslink and coaxial. There were 6 of us this time and everyone of us feels coax sounds full and more natural. Three listeners conclude that toslink sound like AM radio. I comment that sound was dull and low-fi. Six people can't all have defective ears.
I am surprised to learn of your findings. In ordinary circumstances I would not have expected much of a discernible difference between coax and Toslink. Most commonly the reasons for the difference are: - very long cable run - breaks or cracks in the cable (I mean the inside conductor) caused by tight rolling or kinks
Coax could potentially have induced interference and hum, esp. for long cable runs.
^ Toslink maybe superior in some application but when it comes to home audio it suffer from high jitter compare to coax. To prove this I went ahead and invite same people with good ear and brought music they know well. We connect both toslink and coaxial. There were 6 of us this time and everyone of us feels coax sounds full and more natural. Three listeners conclude that toslink sound like AM radio. I comment that sound was dull and low-fi. Six people can't all have defective ears.
So, was this a blind test or did the listeners know which cable they were listening to?
^ Toslink maybe superior in some application but when it comes to home audio it suffer from high jitter compare to coax. To prove this I went ahead and invite same people with good ear and brought music they know well. We connect both toslink and coaxial. There were 6 of us this time and everyone of us feels coax sounds full and more natural. Three listeners conclude that toslink sound like AM radio. I comment that sound was dull and low-fi. Six people can't all have defective ears.
What equipment was used to conduct this comparison? Was it a blind A/B test? Did you use a SPL to ensure the same volume for both Optical and Coax? Often they have different signal strength, even in the same player. Were you using quality toslink cables? Details, details...
The last time I heard such a large difference between optical and coax in the same player was back in the late 70's or 80's and that component's optical circuit was a piece of crap. I think the only reason it was included as an output option was for marketing purposes. I have also seen the opposite results back in that time frame, where the optical was well implements and the coax was a piece of crap.
In the past few years I have tried to compare optical vs coax using the Oppo 980H, Oppo 983, Oppo 83SE, Denon 2910/3910, 3920, Sony 3100ES, and Emotiva ERC-1. I used my SPL meter to match the volume levels with each A/B test. No one sitting in the room could discern any difference in the sound quality between the Optical feed and the Coax feed. The pre/pro used with all of these comparison were the Emotiva MMC-1 and the UMC-1. The speakers used were Emotiva Reference Series, and the sub woofer was an Infinity Interlude 12". The source media was HDCD encoded CDs, SACDs, DVD-A and DVD sound tracks and concerts. The cables were high quality Blue Jeans coax digital and Impact Acoustics Glass Fiber Optical toslink.
All of these high quality players have excellent audio quality whether using analog, optical digital or coax digital; and, the manufacturers devoted equal care in designing and implementing their output stages. It would be very difficult to hear any differences in sound quality between the optical and coax circuits in any of these fine players. It would be like trying to hear a difference between the XPA-5 and the XPA-3.
Twenty to thirty years ago there was a difference in the sound quality between using toslink versus coax digital connections. This was primarily because the vendors showed a preference for one over the other and even though they provided both connectors they took short cuts on one of them. Depending on who you bought from, they showed a strong preference for optical or for coax digital, so sometimes digital showed large differences in the quality of their implementations.
Today, I find that the implementations are well balanced in the same piece of equipment. It seems that a number of Lounge members feel that optical is inherently inferior to coax. In reality, optical is superior to coax, but with the length of the cable runs and the frequencies used for consumer audio installations it is not significant.
Check out hospital equipment and aero-space industry and you will find that optical digital is used almost solely. It is more reliable and is not subject to electrical interference, as is coax digital. My son is an aero-space engineer and all of their satellites use optical digital exclusively; and, of course they use nothing but highly polished glass fiber optical wiring.
For audio/video purposes, there shouldn't be any difference in sound quality unless the manufacturer intentionally takes short cuts in one area versus the other, as long as you use decent build quality in the cables and the connectors. Something I learned years ago, is if you are in a noisy electrical environment, optical digital is immune to ground loop hum.
Agreed!!! My employer has 3 dedicated data centers and an immense test lab all running clustered 10Gbps links. Fiber is everywhere. Miles and miles of it. Triple redundancy for data, power (7 200KVA diesel generators), HVAC, and equipment. This is serious stuff. Fiber rules!
The biggest factor in bit perfect transmission is full duplex links that can resend packets when the receiving end gets confused. The receiver asks for retransmission of corrupted data and the sender obliges. This can happen many times before the receiver is satisfied. A threshold is in place for all critical data connections. Reach that threshold and our engineers are mobilized automatically to resolve the issue. The point is that data will be corrupted no matter how much money you throw at it and it takes quite a lot to get it bit perfect. When you realize that we mirror SAN storage across all data centers in real time and the data must be bit perfect, the infrastructure required to do this is staggering. Re-try rates are never zero and are less than .05% but, re-trys are there in every data link.
TOSLINK and for that matter COAX are one way streets. A re-try isn't possible. Algorithms attempt to correct the data. I don't know how successful these are. They cannot be perfect. Even if these error correction routines were 99.99% right, that leaves .01% wrong. 1 bit out of 10,000. What would that sound like? Would you notice? It could be a snap, crackle, or pop. It could be nothing.
I have 1 input on my UMC-1 fed by fiber to reduce the lock on times that were long pre .19 UMC firmware. When the kids select that input and not the HDMI input from the BluRay, I notice it right away. Heck, maybe my fiber cable is bad????????
I wish there was a move in the audio industry to to integrate fiber for more than just TOSLINK. The price of equipment would go up but I think it would be worth it. I would love to see one fiber link between a pre/pro and any number of amps. Maybe HDMI version 2.1 will be fiber?
Man, it's amazing what too much coffee can do to ya! Sorry for the brain dump.
Joined: Jun 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 4,750 Location: Boca Raton, FL
Re: Glass Toslink Cables « Reply #35 on Feb 12, 2012, 2:43pm »
My CD Player is connected to the UMC-1 with a 3' Toslink cable. So also is my HDTV to the UMC-1. I hear nothing that I could refer to as inferior sounding. Can you experts explain to the masses what you are talking about? How would I know or suspect when all the bits are not being transmitted from source to sink ?
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