TOSLINK Optical vs Coaxial for CD transport to DAC

Yes coax is generally better than toslink. What is your budget for a new cable?

Optical is typically inferior. It is because the circuitry on both sides are electronic, so conversion to optical and back to electrical is required. In all but purpose built expensive components off the shelf optical/electrical converters are used and as a consequence have low quality sound characteristics. There are some high end companies using optical as a way of reducing noice... but these are far between.

Ultimately it will have to do with how good your system is at resolving. So, for instance my TV to Soundbar is run on optical. It is not obvious. But pretty low resolution application. 

The only way you will know is to try, as the difference will depend on the quality of receivers in the DAC for various inputs. Such differences, in an ideally engineered DAC, will be small to none, typically far less than differences heard when moving your speakers by six inches or so.

While poor optical interfaces certainly exist, some users find that by using optical, transmission of noise between components is reduced. So, perhaps you can borrow an inexpensive SPDIF coax cable and listen for yourself.

@audphile1 

I'm not willing to spend much, (at least in audiophile standards) that said I just recently bought the Veritas Aperta SE speaker cables. I am very impressed with them, and Veritas has there Nexum C digital S/PDIF cable at $299 for 1.5m. I am thinking of trying it to compare to my optical cable. With a 30-day money back trial period, takes the gamble of the equation.

@ghdprentice 

Thank you for the technical explanation, that makes sense. I like to think my system (Simaudio Moon 600i integrated amp into Focal L&R Utopia Be loudspeakers) is a rather resolving system. 

OP mentioned using Toslink, this is perhaps the worst interface for dac. Don't confuse this with optical networking, two entirely different things. Only streaming dacs will have optical network input.

I think  the resolution of optical is limited to 96kHz vs 192kHz for coax.  Optical is often chosen out of TV's where the only other option is usually HDMI and may not work.  I would use as good a coax cable as you want to buy, and a product like this should be easily returnable.  Let us know if indeed it sounds better than the  optical

@gakman worth a try with money back policy. Also look into Audioquest and Audience. Moon Audio makes decent cables and I think they offer money back. 
Avoid blue jeans coax. While I like their interconnects, the coax is garbage. 

While concur with most (or all) that's been said already, coax isn't without its own issues. 

@fastfreight 

Optical is often chosen out of TV's where the only other option is usually HDMI and may not work

I would have thought the opposite - optical is only used where HDMI is not available.

According to Wikipedia, S/PDIF is bandwidth limited and cannot support higher resolution formats:

S/PDIF can carry two channels of uncompressed PCM audio or compressed 5.1 surround sound; it cannot support lossless surround formats that require greater bandwidth

Hello @richardbrand !  That is what I was trying to say.  Optical is used where HDMI does not work (no HDMI input on legacy processor or soundbar etc).

@fastfreight 

Optical is used where HDMI does not work (no HDMI input on legacy processor or soundbar etc)

Replace "does not work" with "is not available" and we 100% agree! 

Or where you want TV sound though your audio system and your HDMI is so old it does not support Audio Return Channel (ARC).

We are indeed in agreement.  Thanks for clarification.

I've tried a few coax cables out from my disc player to my integrated and every one had occasional drop outs. A high quality RCA IC never did (it even sounded better) but a glass Toslink sounded the best and never has drop outs. 

Trust your ears. 96Khz done right sounds fantastic.

All the best,
Nonoise

 +1 @nonoise   Just goes to show you have to try things for yourself in your own system.  Good post.