Optical cable

Is there any different between Expensive Optical cable VS Cheap Optical cable? I just got my Optical cable from Jasco, they have 1 type only, selling for only RM12.90 ONLY... Some more stated 100% OFC free and 24K gold plated connector..

After I test run with it.. I feel no different compare with my monster coaxial cable...
or maybe there is, but I cannot tell. But since it is night time now, I will give it another try tomorrow evening.

How can optical be gold plated o.0" OFC again...

lol!

OFC free is the cable and gold plated is the connector part, anything related?

So far I know, optical cable got two type material, plastic or glass. Glass is better than plastic one. The minimum bandwidth requirement for the 3-3.3M hz S/PDIF transmission is 9M hz. Since the plastic conductor optical cable has only 5-6M hz of bandwidth it does not meet the minimum bandwidth requirement. That is why 30M hz bandwidth glass optical cable is better than typical plastic optical cable. Why plastic optical cable is always sound bad when compare to coaxial digital cable.

Hmm, i think the Optical that I bought stated misleading information, it stated Gigahz bandwidth. =S, Btw, I really cannot hear any different compare with Coaxial cable... Will give it another try later. Probably because my Optical cable only 1 meter long.

eugenecctan wrote:Hmm, i think the Optical that I bought stated misleading information, it stated Gigahz bandwidth. =S, Btw, I really cannot hear any different compare with Coaxial cable... Will give it another try later. Probably because my Optical cable only 1 meter long.

What coaxial cable you compare with?

Monster coaxial, my AVR got 1 coaxial input only.. so to connect my new DVD, I will need to use 1 Optical cable.. But really cannot hear any different.. Anyhow, the cheap optical cable is 1 meter long, maybe that is the reason.

if u can't hear the difference, then consider yourself blessed that you no need to bother with all these optical or coaxial crap. In your case its just another black hole to suck your money for something that you cannot hear the difference in the first place. So can use the $$$ to buy more CDs instead!. hahaha

Hehehe, ok, maybe you can try to get 1 (12.90 only btw) and let me know is there any different... Or maybe bcos i connected it using PC.

optical vs coax is another controversial issue.

my view is there is no difference in the transmission of data but the differences that some audiophiles claim to hear are due to the electronics of the interfaces, not the cables.

mugenfoo wrote:if u can't hear the difference, then consider yourself blessed that you no need to bother with all these optical or coaxial crap. In your case its just another black hole to suck your money for something that you cannot hear the difference in the first place. So can use the $$$ to buy more CDs instead!. hahaha

agree.

Too many people get too carried away with interconnects, esp coaxial, optical and 'hottest' HDMI cables. Basically, all are digital interconnects. 1010101010. Either you get the signal or you do not esp short HDMI cable.

sflam wrote:optical vs coax is another controversial issue.

my view is there is no difference in the transmission of data but the differences that some audiophiles claim to hear are due to the electronics of the interfaces, not the cables.

There IS a difference in the transmission.

It affects how the receiver interprets the signals that are being sent by the transmitter via the transfer medium.

Better conduits won't induce so much jitter. Poor ones will.
This includes the transmission medium (the metal wires, or the fibre optic strand ), and also the quality of the interfaces (ie connectors) be it Optical or Electrical.

The next question would be if it's audible or not. This is best left for the individual to decide. If u hear a difference... great. If you don't, no big deal either.

In all instances where an optical cable replaced a coaxial cable from transport to DAC, the coaxial sounded better to me. There was only once where an optical cable sounded better than coaxial and that was using an ST Optical cable. But of course your transport and DAC has to be equipped with the ST Optical interface. To me ST Optical sounded as good as the AES/EBU connection if not slightly better in speed.

kkthen wrote: So far I know, optical cable got two type material, plastic or glass. Glass is better than plastic one. The minimum bandwidth requirement for the 3-3.3M hz S/PDIF transmission is 9M hz. Since the plastic conductor optical cable has only 5-6M hz of bandwidth it does not meet the minimum bandwidth requirement. That is why 30M hz bandwidth glass optical cable is better than typical plastic optical cable. Why plastic optical cable is always sound bad when compare to coaxial digital cable.

i am using qed performance optical cable made of plastic. the more expensive qed reference is also made of plastic.

there are some people who say plastic fibre optics can sound better than glass ones.

sflam wrote:

kkthen wrote: So far I know, optical cable got two type material, plastic or glass. Glass is better than plastic one. The minimum bandwidth requirement for the 3-3.3M hz S/PDIF transmission is 9M hz. Since the plastic conductor optical cable has only 5-6M hz of bandwidth it does not meet the minimum bandwidth requirement. That is why 30M hz bandwidth glass optical cable is better than typical plastic optical cable. Why plastic optical cable is always sound bad when compare to coaxial digital cable.

i am using qed performance optical cable made of plastic. the more expensive qed reference is also made of plastic.

there are some people who say plastic fibre optics can sound better than glass ones.

You guys are only looking at the link only in piecewise fashion. There is much more to just plastics or glass that determines the quality of a digital link. You also got to factor in the transmitter's LED quality, the transmitter's optical coupler, the optical cable's interface connectors at both ends, the receiver's coupler (photo diode), it's supporting electronics etc etc.

It is also a poor generalisation to put glass fibre as simply superior over plastic fibre. The clarity of plastic optics have improved tremendously over the years compared to the first generation plastics of 10 years ago. Just as a good "glass fibre" cable can just the same be ruined by poor quality terminations, so there is no hard n fast rule over which is superior over the other.

Also, the 3MHz / 9MHz example is inaccurate.

Bi-phase mark coding merely needs twice the bandwidth of the signal to be carried.
16bit/44.1Khz (plus its preambles & control flags etc etc that makes up the redbook digital stream) streams at only 2.8224 Mbps. So to carry this signal via BiMC scheme, a 6Mhz carrier is more than sufficient already.

Even with today's Dolby 5.1, DTS signal streams, toslink plastic fibre can easily carry these signals from DVD player to the AV amp. So today's plastic fibres are definitely higher bandwidth than 5~6MHz.

sflam wrote:
i am using qed performance optical cable made of plastic. the more expensive qed reference is also made of plastic.

there are some people who say plastic fibre optics can sound better than glass ones.

Don't need care so much the plastic & Glass. As long as the cable provide good performance to your system. May be next time you try top grade Audioquest Optilink-5 which is quartz( glass) & Low range Optilink-1 which is synthetic fiber(plastic), find out what is different of this 2 conductor.BTW I am only using RM100 glass toslink, but happy the performance.

ST Optical is the way to go if you have it.



It won't plug into a Toslink interface though.

kkthen wrote: May be next time you try top grade Audioquest Optilink-5 which is quartz( glass) & Low range Optilink-1 which is synthetic fiber(plastic), find out what is different of this 2 conductor.BTW I am only using RM100 glass toslink, but happy the performance.

AO-5 from what they claimed:"The Optilink-5 is such a good conductor, that if you coiled it up and held one end near a piece of paper, you could read through the other end!" would set you back by USD495 vs O-1 which is USD85. Would be interesting if able to compare these two for performance.

I bought a vDH Optocoupler MKII for connection between the ESI Juli@ SC and CA Azur740C but too bad for me I got no sound. Still trouble-shooting the problem.

I use the cheap free fiber optic cable that came with my Chord DAC 64. Tried coax and various fo cables - in the end, it really did not make a difference. Trust your ears.

Good for you!

glass or plastic i have no experience, but coax & optic yes i do. if i need sharp clean mids & highs, tight bass, i will go for optic, if i need warm analog sound, its coax i prefer. I found its better for me to use optical for movies & off course coax for music.