Digital Audio Cables: Wire or Optical

I think that digital signals are PCM ( pulse code modulated ) but i'm not sure. Never really paid a lot of attention to how they did this, only the results. Either way, they are "modulating" or "super-imposing" the digital data stream onto an rf based signal. If i remember correctly, i think that this signal is somewhere around 3 to 4 MHz or so. As such, coax is still a pretty efficient conductor at that range and should work quite well.

You do bring up a good point though that i had forgotten about. There actually has to be another stage that we've overlooked. Obviously, laser is a light based energy. As such, the signal has to start off as optical and is then converted to digital. At this point, the data can be extracted / seperated between the optical laser signal and the digital data that was superimposed on that light stream. From there it can be sent from transport to dac via the rf based coaxial jack or via optical on a toslink jack. Obviously, there must be technical problems ( probably scientific limitations ) with trying to leave the signal optical from the transport and then directly it at the DAC directly. This would drastically simplify things if possible.

After thinking about all of this, it is no wonder that it has taken us 20 years to get good sound out of redbook players. While i do believe we started off with something that was not well thought out to begin with, there is obviously a LOT going on within these players. As such, i see a lot of room for error and the necessary refinement that takes place when you have such errors.

Maybe we should be grateful for what we have and be glad that technology is working to our benefit. Then again, if they would have simply started off with a higher sampling rate to begin with ..... : ) Sean
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Genesis -

The bandwidth of Toslink is at least 6Mbits/sec, assuming that you have your transport and DAC within shouting distance of each other. Note that as Jcbtubes said, plastic fiber links (including Toslink) can run much faster. The datastream for CD runs under 1.5Mbits/sec.

If you prefer coax to Toslink, no problem. If you're looking for a technical reason that would make coax superior in audio applications, bandwidth isn't it.

I had the same question after I had used an optical link for a number of months. I went to a coaxial link recently and did an A/B comparision. The audio is more realistic on the coax. The sound went from just musical notes to the reproduction of the musical experience. The soundstage presence was missing on the optical. I'll not go back to optical.

Hi Lbietz2001,
I had the opposite reaction. I once tried a $200 "highly touted" coax digital cable (only 1m lenght) and felt that the music lost its charm. The experience (diluted) was there but the "notes" were lacking. Instead of "musical notes" I heard dome kind of "noise", "harshness" and other sounds which were not in original signal. My friend brought his mega bucks transport along with his $500 coax digital cable and we sat down for some serious A/B comparisons. Imagine his shock! He was completely blown away by my rig using a cheaper $100 optical cable. Next day he put his coax digital for sale. I will NEVER go back to coax digital again- its a sucker product. Cheers

Upgrade1394, what is comprised of your system, if I may ask? I was curious as to why Toslink sounds better for you as I too find Toslink to sound better. You said you are using a $100.00 version. I originally started with a $50.00 Audioquest and upgraded to a little more expensive one from DH Labs and there was an improvement. I have not researched all the Toslink models, but with the connection being of key importance, you could spend probably upwards of $200-400.00 for some fancy Toslink models,but is there a limit as to how good the cable can sound ? in other words, a point of diminishing return.Thanks for your feedback.