Optical vs. Digital Coaxial? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Ma]

Ok! I give up.

 

[Chris*Liberti]

There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The optical connection does not suffer from electrical interferance but it does introduce jitter into the sound chain. For me I find on the same setup the jitter causes the sound to sound thinner than it normally would with a good coax cable.

 

[Craig_Kg]

-The signal goes through additional signal processing, converted from voltage by the DVD player, into an otical form for transmission, and then back into voltage by the processor. (considered a disadvantage by most)

Here lies a MAJOR misconception - that the coax digital signal is "pure" compared with a "converted" optical signal. The SPDIF signal in a coax cable is a modulated bitstream. The optical signal can be considered as being modulated but at a much higher frequency (light).

The jitter arguement against optical cabling can be turned around on to the coax cabling too - a coax cable that is out of spec can have enough capacitance to smear the transitions to create jitter.