satellite digital ?'s

A little off-thread, but I did a shoot-out last night with the new Audioquest Optilink 5 toslink cable versus their VSD-4 digital coax, and the result was astonishing (in the world of cable differences, that is). Contrary to popular belief, the Toslink cable was SIGNIFICANTLY better than the coax. Better soundstage, better expansion, better detail, in short, better in every way than the coax in an A/B comparison (switching inputs back and forth, not swapping out the cables). The difference was so impressive that I intend to use toslink if available. Get a high quality glass toslink cable and don't worry about converting signals. I can only discuss this particular cable, but it mirrors other comments on audioasylum.com regarding galss toslink cables.

Not being a Dish person;--I'm a direct person-- So I can only contribute from a Directv perspective.. The 48 signal is a mixed animal. 6/7 years ago when I first installed sat; I bought the Sony box w/ toslinc out.(Remember this is a pre 5.1 box.)Before that I had cable's DMX radio. DMX had a coax out. I was very dissapointed with Sony, using toslinc.--for the music only channels.--So I took my sat box to Theta and had the toslinc converted to coax.--Very happy. This was going into a Theta Gen 5.---A couple of years ago I added a Purcell up sampler. The 48 signal had a few problems locking to the Purcell;it will lock and stop several times for about 60 sec. or so.Then you would be ok, till you changed stations. Now within the last few weeks it won't lock at all--just to the Purcell. It will lock to the Theta.-- AND-- to make things strange; the Purcell will lock to "every"regular station except the "music-only" stations. Going into just the Theta--no problem locking to "all" stations--- Just that I miss the Purcell's improvement.---So, you must remember the newer 5.1 boxes output a different signal. It is pretty much the same as the 5.1 from a dvd. So, you would have to go into your processor's menu and change it to 44.1. Now, on to my Hd sat box. (Pan. TU-HDS20)It does have OTA digital, that a processor can use. It won't give out the audio from an analog station---unless you are using the analog output from the box. In LA,Ca,there is an analog and digital counterpart, for each station. The 5.1 over the air for locals is stunning--If the sation is brodcasting 5.1.