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Optical Vs. Coaxial


TomS17

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Is there any quality difference between the digital optical connection and a digital coaxial connection? The reason I ask is because I have my DVD player hooked up using an optical cable and I want to hook up my PS2 w/ an optical cable but I can't do both because my Onkyo receiver only has one optical and one coaxial input.

Tom

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no i don't think there's really a dif as long as they're both fairly good quality. taking a stroll down

memory lane, i've seen more claim that the coax actually sounds better. & that's how i have mine hooked up even though i have the spare optical inputs & cable.

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Klipsch KLF 30 (front), KLF C-7, Cornwall I (rear)

Velodyne HGS-18 sub woofer

Monsterbass 400 sub interconnects & Monster CX-2 biwire & Z-12 cable

Marantz SR-8000 receiver

Sony DVP-C650D cd/dvd player

Sony Trinitron 27" stereo tv

Toshiba hi-fi stereo vcr

Technics dual cassette deck

Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 digital cable box

Boa's Listenin Lounge:

Klipsch RF-3 (front), RC-3, cheap little Technics (rear)

Monster MCX Biwires

Sony STR-DE935 a/v receiver

Kenwood KR-9600 AM/FM stereo receiver (vintage 1975)

Russound AB-2 receiver switch to RF-3

Teac PD-D1200 5-disk cd changer

Technics direct drive turntable

Sega Genesis game player

Sub: None yet

rock on!

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'on paper' the digital coax has more 'bandwidth' or data-carrying capability, but dig.opt. has all the bandwidth you need. digital coax can be influenced by STRONG emi/rfi noise, but a well-shielded cable should prevent that.!!i have used a decent-quality video cable MANY times as dig.coax with success!! so those cables are readily available. dig.opt.on the other hand can't be bent excessively, and probably costs more.on devices that have dig.coax,that is what i use, but i use dig.opt on some devices(like from my satellite receiver). avman.

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Um, yeah, what they both said. They just beat me to it. I am running digital coax with my DVD mainly due to slightly lower cost and I didn't want to break the optical fibers around tight corners. I have been very happy with the coax, and not have enough equipment to try the optical side.

This message has been edited by jhawk92 on 06-05-2001 at 12:02 PM

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yea j, my sony only had 1 of each & i had to use the optical for dvdp to free up the coax for the digital set-top box (u try that yet?) didn't hear any dif using the monster interconnects.

now the new marantz sr8000 has 3 of each dig inputs. have all of my (2) dig components connected coax. does this mean i need to get 4 more dig components. DAT anyone? cwm12.gif

------------------

Klipsch KLF 30 (front), KLF C-7, Cornwall I (rear)

Velodyne HGS-18 sub woofer

Monsterbass 400 sub interconnects & Monster CX-2 biwire & Z-12 cable

Marantz SR-8000 receiver

Sony DVP-C650D cd/dvd player

Sony Trinitron 27" stereo tv

Toshiba hi-fi stereo vcr

Technics dual cassette deck

Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 digital cable box

Boa's Listenin Lounge:

Klipsch RF-3 (front), RC-3, cheap little Technics (rear)

Monster MCX Biwires

Sony STR-DE935 a/v receiver

Kenwood KR-9600 AM/FM stereo receiver (vintage 1975)

Russound AB-2 receiver switch to RF-3

Teac PD-D1200 5-disk cd changer

Technics direct drive turntable

Sega Genesis game player

Sub: None yet

rock on!

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I think either one is fine. Most audio writers do seem to prefer coaxial, but in my system, I thought the optical link was quieter - they are impervious to some of the nasties of wire, such as ground loops, stray RFI and EMI, and so on.

Whatever works!

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JDMcCall

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Tested this a while ago on the following setup:

Marantz CD6000, Yamaha 595a amp, (Rotel 1080 power amp, Heresy 2 speakers).

We compared Optical, Coax and analogue connections simultaneously to different inputs on the Yamaha switching between the sources.

Both the Coaxial cable and the RCA's were Mogami's finest (around $200) and the optical was a Zimmerman for a similar price.

The optical cable gave by far the best quality sound (all 5 people listening agreed) whilst the performance of the coax marginally shaded that of the analogue connections.

We then repeated the test with a Pioneer DVD player as the source (playing CD) on a Sony amp with much the same result.

Trying to interpret the results I would say both the analogue and Coax connections suffered from the poor quality of the connectors on the amps (cheap metal connectors - not gold) but that is a guess.

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whoa!! analog cables sounded like coax digital?? when you use analog out to a digital receiver, unless the rcvr has 'analog direct' or some other type of non-digitally-manipulated play capability, your analog signal is usually re-converted to digital again by the rcvr, then to analog for the output of recognizable sound. by using any digital connection, you bypass the source-devices'd/a converter, and send the 'bitstream' to the d/a converter in the rcvr/pre-amp. as i said, most dig.coax has more bandwidth than opt., but this is not a factor as long as the data supplied doesn't exceed that capacity. also; was this a single or double blind test? where dvd is concerned, you MUST hookup digitally, or you don't get dd/dts. avman.

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