One reason that optical is superior to coaxial is that it eliminates the possibility of ground loops between equipment. This can make a big difference to the sound quality as well as removing annoying hum.
I experienced this first hand recently when I tried a borrowed TAG DVD transport in place of my usual cheapo one into a variety of DACs, including a Chord DAC64 and a Benchmark DAC1. The Benchmark is essentially immune to incoming jitter and is as transport agnostic as any DAC I've ever heard (in fact I think it is completely irrelevant which transport you use it with) and the Chord DAC is pretty good in this respect too. But there was a clear problem with the sound just "collapsing" when the TAG DVD was used with a coaxial lead instead of an optical. Also when you are trying to get sound out of a computer soundcard you will often experience ground loop issues if using coaxial. Andrew -- Andrew B. ========================================================= SB3-> Benchmark DAC1 -> EAR864 valve pre -> ATC SCM50ASL active speakers... nice! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew B.'s Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2619 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18772 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
