325xi;186512 Wrote: > To summarise the overwhelming response - Toslink works according to > specification, which no inherent production flaws, so there's no reason > to avoid it, or even better, use coax only when Toslink isn't available. > I didn't miss anything, right?
Toslink works by shining an LED along a length of cable, which is then received by a phototransistor at the other end. The signal from this phototransistor is likely to be smaller and have less clearly defined on/off edges than the signal received at the end of a coax cable. Therefore, it is not unlikely that jitter at the input to the clock recovery circuit will be worse, and that in turn may mean that jitter at the DAC chip (where it matters) is also worse. > Now the next step. Few mentioned here that quality of optical connector > can cause problems. Any advise of how to discern a good quality optical > cable from something with cheap flaky connectors? Is it a matter of > particular brands, or whatever else? I presume I can't evaluate quality > just by looking at the cable or its price tag, right? The connector in an optical cable doesn't really make any difference - it's just a mechanical thing designed to hold the fibre in place so that the light coming out of the end shines onto the phototransistor. I seriously doubt there's any performance difference at all between connectors - it's not like in an electronic system where the connector is actually a part of the signal path. The transparency of the cable itself and the quality of the cut ends might be important. Keeping it as short as possible will help. -- AndyC_772 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33146 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
