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Optical vs. Coaxial?


Lankhoss

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the coaxial cable and the optical fiber have their own weakness:

the coaxial cable is sensitive to magnetic wave or electrical phenomenon but the data carried on it are digital so it has almost no effect.

the fibre can be broken very easily and the extremity of the FO must be very clean.

any way if you use optical or coaxial you should have the same quality if you use them carrefuly.

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On 7/28/2004 9:45:27 AM doudou wrote:

the fibre can be broken very easily and the extremity of the FO must be very clean.

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its a frenglish sentence sorry.

i wanted to say:

the fiber can be broken very easily and the extremity of the Optical Fiber must be very clean.

it may not be better but i tried2.gif

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Guest Anonymous

well, as far from my expierence with the two i have been able to do a little research and i found that most manufactures say the digital co-ax is better for transmitting digital signals i.e. 5.1 dd and dts, because it can handle a much larger bandwith and there is one less conversion being made, that of the sound to light back to sound, where is digital co-ax has less processing, but i have seen it is very hard to find a high quality digital co-ax cable where i can't walk into an electronic store without tripping over 6000 different grades of fiber optic.... umm i use both and i personally can't tell a difference but then again my surround sound system is not one of stellar quality but i like it i guess. The other thing i have seen is that digital co-ax is prone to rf intereference where as fiber optic is not so you would pick up more distortion across your line... but i don't know that many people who's system is so great they would notice it thats why i don't think people say there is really that much of a difference within the sound. personally i think that fiber optic is a more popular choice because when your on the salesman end and you tell someone they need a cable to transmitt there dd and dts sound and they see a digital co-ax they almost always say well i already have that or something that works or thats just an rca connection, where most people have never seen fiber optic and they know they have nothing that will work.... i don't know if any of this helps you at all

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Having installed two lengths of 50 ft Toslinks and also two 50 ft lengths of coax(RG-6 quad shield one way signal) I did notice some amplitude differences but I have not nailed down any huge differences. The coax did seem cleaner but not sure. Sorry I can't add any more. But I do seem to like the coax better.

JJK

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On 8/1/2004 5:28:05 PM JJKIZAK wrote:

Having installed two lengths of 50 ft Toslinks ...

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It may be a moot point, but I thought I read toslink was only spec'd to 10 meters. You have proved that it certainly WILL work, but there well may be some signal degradation.

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A bit is a freaking bit, it either 1 or 0 not anything else. I dont see where quality even plays a role. I thought that was the whole point of digital output in the first place. A word comes to my mind "placebo" I think thats how you spell it. Anyway, i use coax because the wire and connection seems more durable, thats the only reaons. Other then that i could care less.

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Guest Anonymous

i use them both, but i think that there is a difference between the two personally, but as far as durability goes i think they make more durable fiber optic then anything i just bought an interlink reference from monster that cost a cool hundred and it has a cloth shielding on the outside... i don't think it gets much more rugged than that.

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Coaxial...look at it this way...call it "black" and "white"

Optical....comes from the DVD player white signal till the comection, travels down the line as black, comes out signal as light.....you've changed the signal path how many times without knowing....black to white.....and back again.

COAXIAL....straight black...A to B...no if's ands or butts...10.gif

PS. I can floss my teeth with that puppy, scarey thinking.....

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On 8/1/2004 9:01:23 PM boomer9911 wrote:

Optical....comes from the DVD player white signal till the comection, travels down the line as black, comes out signal as light.....you've changed the signal path how many times without knowing....black to white.....and back again.

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?????????

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't fiber optics only reflect about 90% light at best? This would mean you are losing some of the information when it's being transferred from the DAC to your amp, correct?

And about running fiber optics for phone lines, I believe that's for 2 reasons. 1) Fiber optics aren't vulnerable to EMI interference or other distortion and 2) I don't think there's anything that travels faster than light.

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Guest Anonymous

what exactly is "Tachion" btw.... ok well phone lines use optics, but we are all talking on a much smaller scale here and personally i still stick with co-ax is better because there is much less processing involved in that conection it can get more rf and emi intereference though but if you have a good cable or what not it shouldn't be a problem the sound i think would be a little warmer or it has been to me, but then maybe that was my ears foolin with me

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On 8/2/2004 10:42:26 AM Lankhoss wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't fiber optics only reflect about 90% light at best? This would mean you are losing some of the information when it's being transferred from the DAC to your amp, correct?

And about running fiber optics for phone lines, I believe that's for 2 reasons. 1) Fiber optics aren't vulnerable to EMI interference or other distortion and 2) I don't think there's anything that travels faster than light.

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there is a third reason, it s the most important because it allows phone operator to lose less money:

on a long distance there is less loss on an optic fiber than on a copper wire.so to transmit some data on a long distance you need less power with a fiber than with a coax.

forthermore you said that a fiber carries only 90% of the signal.

it don t matter at all because with digital signat, 90% of a 1 is still a 1 and 90% of a 0 is still a 0.

2.gif

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on short distance there is no difference between coax and fiber.the coax will be worst if it is 350 meter long and next to an enormous electrical equipement and the fiber will be worst if you don t handle it with a lot of care.

the fiber may have one advantage: it work also in water without any protection...but amps or dvd players don t so it s not very important9.gif

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On 8/2/2004 9:24:31 AM ygmn wrote:

Any scientific, engineering, technical data on this subject?

The phone company uses optics due to limitations on normal wire.....been so for years....

but where is some hard data?

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Glass optical cable is quite a bit different than the plastic stuff used in Toslink cables. Also, the laser drivers used are in no way comparable to the LED drivers used in audio equipment. The stuff the phone company uses has ridiculous levels of bandwidth that can be multiplied further using advanced technologies. In these applications, copper can't complete... which is why the FTTP initiative is alive and well.

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