Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Diffrence in quality of diffrent optical cables?

Bob McElfresh · 12-30-2003, 10:55 PM

This is a controversial issue.

Fact: you can take a $70 optical cable and a $15 cheap optical cable and shine the output on a piece of white paper. The intensity of the two cables can be visiably different.

Fact: This may not matter as long as the light is bright enough to be sensed by the reciever.

Home Theater magazine did a test with 3 coaxial and 3 optical cables. The reviewers could not hear any difference between the 3 coaxial and 2 of the optical cables. But 1 of the optical cables sounded different to all of them.

This was never explained.

So in theory all optical cables should produce the same bits which means all should sound identical. But there are some who swear they heard a difference.

So the generic advice is:

- Use coaxial if possible (less reported variations)
- Use the least-expensive, but quality optical cable you can find that works.

12-30-2003, 10:55 PM	#3 of 6
Bob McElfresh Administrator Join Date: May 1999 Local Time: 02:55 AM Local Date: 12-02-2008 Posts: 6,622	This is a controversial issue. Fact: you can take a $70 optical cable and a $15 cheap optical cable and shine the output on a piece of white paper. The intensity of the two cables can be visiably different. Fact: This may not matter as long as the light is bright enough to be sensed by the reciever. Home Theater magazine did a test with 3 coaxial and 3 optical cables. The reviewers could not hear any difference between the 3 coaxial and 2 of the optical cables. But 1 of the optical cables sounded different to all of them. This was never explained. So in theory all optical cables should produce the same bits which means all should sound identical. But there are some who swear they heard a difference. So the generic advice is: - Use coaxial if possible (less reported variations) - Use the least-expensive, but quality optical cable you can find that works.