I've been in and out of the audiophile hobby for as long as I can remember. I guess my earliest tweek was building speaker stands for my bookshelf speakers before I had a driver's license.

Sometime in the very early 80's I opened up my 25" TV (a big set at the time) and added a stereo headphone jack so I could patch the TV audio into my stereo.

Ever since then, I've concentrated on Audio/video systems.

Recently, I've gotten back into audio and I am setting up a modest rig using some left-over components and a few new bits of gear for CD and vinyl playback and I'm making a few 'discoveries' along the way.

I remember when optical digital connections first started showing up on consumer audio/video gear. I thought it was really cool. No more fooling around with expensive audio interconnects, just plug in the optical cable and you're good-to-go.

Well I was recently setting up a CD/DVD player in as part of an audio rig and I had the option of connecting the player to my receiver via Monster Cable Optical cable or Ixos Digital Coaxial cable.

I connected both and did a little A-B testing switching between the two using my receiver's set-up menu and the the Coaxial connection beats the Optical big time.

Since I already had the cables, it was a free upgrade. I noticed most high-end audio gear does not have optical connections, so I guess this is old news to most of you, but for me the difference between the two was a suprise.

I would encourage anyone using optical connects to try both, optical may not be the best way to go for your rig.


Robert

PS I'm a big fan of Ixos cables. They are attractively priced, seem to be well made and sound as good to my ears as anything else I have tried, including some fairly expensive cables.<ul><li><a href="http://www.ixos.co.uk/us/index.asp">http://www.ixos.co.uk/us/index.asp</a</li></ul>

the difference you are hearing could be related to any number of things: signal path in your transport, signal path in your receiver, cabling, etc. One technology is not superior to the other.

I was reading your post and hoping you'd explain the differences and how you detected them. The only explanation you gave was:

<i>I connected both and did a little A-B testing switching between the two using my receiver's set-up menu and the the Coaxial connection beats the Optical big time.</i>

I'm willing to believe you, but this doesn't tell me why I should.

It could be unique to my CD/DVD player (Samsung DVD-HD841) or Receiver (Sony STR-DA555ES). Perhaps one or the other has a flaw or weak design.

The optical fine, but I thought my turntable sounded much better. I switched to the coaxial input and it has higher output level at the same volume setting, sounds smoother and seems to have more punch. Suddenly, the turntable seems to be the weaker of the two.

I'm usually a 'bits is bits' kind of guy and question a lot of the tweaks that some folks swear by, but I can hear a difference.

I'm not trying to rock anybodys boat here, It's a touchy subject among audio enthusiast (follow the link for a sample).

If my post gets folks to try both options and one person finds Coax or Optical to be superior with their equipment then I have not posted in vain.

Cheers,

Robert<ul><li><a href="http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/1/1115.html">http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/1/1115.html</a</li></ul>

But, no one can make a broad statement that either technology is superior across the board because that's simply false.

Some applications work best with coax, some with optical - usually down to cable length (optical works than coaxial in long runs, coaxial works better than optical if the space behind the gear is tight - this is because the signal can be lost completely when an optical cable is bent at a right-angle).
For a no-compromise set-up I've always found coaxial cables to sound more pleasing to my ear, providing the coaxial cable is of decent quality.

It's a lot easier to tell with music than with movies, simply because the sound quality on most DVD's isn't in the same league as a CD (not to mention vinyl) because of the MP3-quality compression used.

Converting the signal from electrical to optical is where part of the problem lies - many budget components (under $1k) have heavily compromised optical stages where the conversion is done resulting in the sound seeming quite flat compoared with a decent coaxial run. But this isn't always the case. Lots of variables. Best thing is to try both and keep the one you prefer.

As for the 'bits is bits' idea...well my ears tell me some of the information can lost along the way, or at least not received particularly well at the other end. This can happen during the conversion from electrical to optical or because of inteference (RFI is more of a problem for coaxial cables, which is why braided coaxials are very effective).

But if the 'bits is bits' idea actually carried any water, we could all just us the any old piece of bootlace RCA cable as an effective coaxial cable wire. With a revealing, well-matched system the differences between one digital cable and another are more apparent. For the most part, the differences between one coaxial cable and another are greater than the differences bewteen one optical cable and another. But the optical cables do vary in performance in the right system.

Depending on whether or not your reciever re-clocks, this may make a difference. So it is possible, yes that co-axial can sound better. Most audiophiles avoid optical for this reason. I use optical with by Bel Canto Dac 2, as this re-clocks the signal and jitter then won't matter.