coax vs toslink

[saeyedoc]

I searched but couldn't find anything on this.
Have been lurking for a few months, looking for a better solution to play a 2TB HD with mostly Flac, have been using my Oppo 93.
Jumped on the sale at Vann's the other day, ordered a Touch.
My plan is to hook it up via digital to my Anthem MRX300 and use the analog output to eventually run a second zone outdoors.
Is there any difference in quality between the Toslink and coax digital outputs? I have no idea whether the input is better for one vs the other on the Anthem, I've only been using HDMI to this point.
I know another option would be to mod it to use the USB output and then use an asynchronous USB to s/pdif converter, but I want to try this first.

Thanks

[garym]

I searched but couldn't find anything on this.
Have been lurking for a few months, looking for a better solution to play a 2TB HD with mostly Flac, have been using my Oppo 93.
Jumped on the sale at Vann's the other day, ordered a Touch.
My plan is to hook it up via digital to my Anthem MRX300 and use the analog output to eventually run a second zone outdoors.
Is there any difference in quality between the Toslink and coax digital outputs? I have no idea whether the input is better for one vs the other on the Anthem, I've only been using HDMI to this point.
I know another option would be to mod it to use the USB output and then use an asynchronous USB to s/pdif converter, but I want to try this first.

Thanks

both are active at the same time. try both and see which you like better. I would predict no detectible difference.

[guidof]

My plan is to hook it up via digital to my Anthem MRX300 and use the analog output to eventually run a second zone outdoors.
Is there any difference in quality between the Toslink and coax digital outputs?

Thanks

As garym suggested, trying both with your equipment is the best way to find out.

In my system, Toslink is more quiet and (slightly) more detailed, possibly because of no ground connection. But it may or may not be so in your system.

Regards,

Guido F.

[Viventis]

There should be no difference at all. Digital is digital. Your receiver's DAC will decode each the same. The big difference is in the Touch's analog output. The DAC in the Touch is excellent, even better than that found in many receivers.

[lovejoy]

There should be no difference at all. Digital is digital. Your receiver's DAC will decode each the same. The big difference is in the Touch's analog output. The DAC in the Touch is excellent, even better than that found in many receivers.

I beg to differ. Getting the 1s and 0s from your Touch to your DAC is quite a challenge (there is no such thing as a digital *SIGNAL*, it is an analogue carrier modulating small changes in voltages representing binary information), especially over the poorly designed interfaces that are TOSLINK and SPDIF. One will be better than the other depending on the implementation and your cabling. TOSLINK optical cables come in two flavours, plastic and glass. The outer sheath will also make a difference, the light path is affected by the reflective and refractive indicies of the cable - take a glass and a plastic cable and listen - easily demonstrable difference in audio quality. No need to spend silly money on a glass cable though - Stan Beresford sells a very good one for example. In my system TOSLINK comes a poor second to a coax connection. I am using a Touch connected to an Audiolab 8200CDQ and the optical connection sounds flat, dull and lifeless.

The SPDIF path is crippled by the fact that it SHOULD be a 75Ohm impedance connection, but considering that RCA plugs are not 75ohms and neither is the circuit up to the RCAs, there's not much chance of avoiding signal reflections between one end and the other. Using different lengths of cable will go some way to alleviating the problems this causes - A lot of people report 1.5m as being the optimum length of coax cable, but again, the cable you use will make a difference. I've tried various coax cables from the likes of Chord, Kontak Link and QED, but so far, my home brewed cable using Belden satellite coax at 0.5 metres has worked best for me. It's not something I could pick up quickly in an A/B test, but certainly, over the course of an evenings listening, the Belden has had me enjoying my music louder and for longer.

Just my experiences - YMMV of course, but keep your ears and mind open.

[fallenguru]

> Viventis wrote:
>> There should be no difference at all. Digital is digital. Your
>> receiver's DAC will decode each the same.

On 24 July 2012 17:21, lovejoy
<lovejoy.5g7qen (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com> wrote:
>
> I beg to differ. Getting the 1s and 0s from your Touch to your DAC is
> quite a challenge [...] over the poorly designed interfaces that are TOSLINK and SPDIF.

I'll give you the poorly designed part, but on the whole the bits get
from here to there just fine. If they didn't, the various encoded
multi-channel formats wouldn't work at all. The only remotely tricky
part is the timing, which does not matter that much in a pure playback
context since the receiver can and usually does a small amount of
buffering. If the digital signal should become corrupted for any
reason, the sound will do something drastic like drop out for a half a
second. Believe me, you'd notice.

Optical will get you electrical isolation between the components,
which can definitely be a plus, if you have problems with RF
interference or noisy power. The downside is that you need
optical-electrical converters at both ends, which may or may not make
the practically irrelevant timing issues a little worse in theory.

> [...] It's not something I could pick up quickly in an A/B test,

Exactly.

C.

[Viventis]

Wow! I am so sorry to disagree, but what I have just read sounds like a bunch of techno-babble published by the manufacturers of high end cables to attempt to justify their exorbitant prices.

Digital is binary. Binary is a sequence of 0's and 1's. If 100 different cables transmit the exact same sequence of 0's and 1's to your DAC, I guarantee that each will sound 100% the same. There is no such thing as a flat 0, a sharp 1, a warm 0 or a harsh 1. They are nothing more than numbers that are decoded by your DAC!

If a cable is so poorly made that it is incapable of transmitting the proper sequence, the result will be different. But that is the only variable.

This takes me back to the question of the OP. If a toslink or spdif cable transmits the same sequence of 0's and 1's to the DAC, there will be no difference in the output.

[ralphpnj]

Wow! I am so sorry to disagree, but what I have just read sounds like a bunch of techno-babble published by the manufacturers of high end cables to attempt to justify their exorbitant prices.

Digital is binary. Binary is a sequence of 0's and 1's. If 100 different cables transmit the exact same sequence of 0's and 1's to your DAC, I guarantee that each will sound 100% the same. There is no such thing as a flat 0, a sharp 1, a warm 0 or a harsh 1. They are nothing more than numbers that are decoded by your DAC!

If a cable is so poorly made that it is incapable of transmitting the proper sequence, the result will be different. But that is the only variable.

This takes me back to the question of the OP. If a toslink or spdif cable transmits the same sequence of 0's and 1's to the DAC, there will be no difference in the output.

Double WOW - you are making way too much sense and common sense and science are most definitely NOT welcome in any modern audio forum. Plus my post should be number 8 and so far no one has told the OP that the USB modification is the ONLY way to go, after all with this mod one can stream 24bit/192kHz and there are just so many reasonably priced (as in less than the price of a new car) 24bit/192kHz recordings available that going with coax or toslink makes absolutely no sense at all.

[lovejoy]

As I said at the bottom of my message, just posting my *EXPERIENCE* based upon many hours of listening and enjoying or not enjoying music. If you can't hear any difference then all the best to you, you've achieved the best sound for your system and I'm jealous and wish you all the best. But don't think that you know everything when you're just spouting all the stuff we've already read and either see the logic in (which I do) or disagree with and know that there must be something more to it (a something which as yet, has not been measured or documented, which I also do).

Technobable? Maybe to you.. To me, transmission lines studied to MEng level. And I ask you.. If it is just 0s and 1s, how do you think are they represented down the length of a piece of cable?

Humans are not measuring devices, so why should a piece of electrical measuring equipment or a law on sampling theory or transmission lines provide all of the answers on why digital music reproduction communicates with us emotionally or not? I suggest you think about that one!

[lovejoy]

Double WOW - you are making way too much sense and common sense and science are most definitely NOT welcome in any modern audio forum. Plus my post should be number 8 and so far no one has told the OP that the USB modification is the ONLY way to go, after all with this mod one can stream 24bit/192kHz and there are just so many reasonably priced (as in less than the price of a new car) 24bit/192kHz recordings available that going with coax or toslink makes absolutely no sense at all.

Agreed, except that you need a newer Class 2 device if you want to stream 24/192. Most (especially cheaper) USB equipped DACs are USB class 1 and so 24/96 is the highest rate you can stream at. The USB mod is most definitely worth a try though.