I used Toslink years ago when I had a Meitner CD3 feeding a Krell DAC (should never have sold that Meitner). The plastic Toslink cables were not nearly as good as the glass ones--don't ask me why; you could bend the plastic cable and mess up the sound badly, to the point of cutting it off. Still felt more comfortable with coax, but my recollection is that at the time it was hard to tell any difference between the glass Toslink and the coax. I've been told by a designer that a lot of it depends on the interface in your transport and DAC. A designer only has so much time and budget to fit their products to a certain price point, so they will generally optimize the interface that they believe will be the most commonly used, and that's usually the coax.
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Digital interconnection, IMHO, has always held many myths.
When I first began delving into outboard D/As, jitterbugs, and transport combinations, very few component manufacturers (for some stupid reason) were actually providing coax RCAs (75ohm SPDIF). Interconnection, in many cases, was acheived through the use of Toslink.
Now most of here already know that I am quite an extreme advocator of balanced interconnection including, digital signal. I personally use AES/EBU on XLRs for my 2 channel system.
Out of necessity, I have had to hook up my home theater DVD player to HT receiver using the Toslink (Denon DVD 5000/Denon 3300). And after listening for an extended period of time, I have to ask, (because I obviously must be forgetting),....... Why was Toslink so bad? Why do many people say it sounds like crap?
The system sounds fine. Very natural and "undigital". I won't mention the Toslink cable manufacturer, but it is glass, and the cable costs $39.95. No "Break-in". No "cryo" no crap, just hook it up and go.
When you think about it, many issues associated with interconnection are negated. Balanced????? No Need. RFI, EMI ????? Trivial. Impedance mismatch????? None. Adverse environmental conditions????? Irrelevant. Overall, a very easy, inexpensive, and sonically acceptable interconnection. I don't know about 2 channel usage, but if this any indication, I'm sure it would yield acceptable results?
Can anyone comment? Is anyone still using it for 2 channel? Even if just out of necessity, or otherwise. Does anyone find Toslink unacceptable?
When I first began delving into outboard D/As, jitterbugs, and transport combinations, very few component manufacturers (for some stupid reason) were actually providing coax RCAs (75ohm SPDIF). Interconnection, in many cases, was acheived through the use of Toslink.
Now most of here already know that I am quite an extreme advocator of balanced interconnection including, digital signal. I personally use AES/EBU on XLRs for my 2 channel system.
Out of necessity, I have had to hook up my home theater DVD player to HT receiver using the Toslink (Denon DVD 5000/Denon 3300). And after listening for an extended period of time, I have to ask, (because I obviously must be forgetting),....... Why was Toslink so bad? Why do many people say it sounds like crap?
The system sounds fine. Very natural and "undigital". I won't mention the Toslink cable manufacturer, but it is glass, and the cable costs $39.95. No "Break-in". No "cryo" no crap, just hook it up and go.
When you think about it, many issues associated with interconnection are negated. Balanced????? No Need. RFI, EMI ????? Trivial. Impedance mismatch????? None. Adverse environmental conditions????? Irrelevant. Overall, a very easy, inexpensive, and sonically acceptable interconnection. I don't know about 2 channel usage, but if this any indication, I'm sure it would yield acceptable results?
Can anyone comment? Is anyone still using it for 2 channel? Even if just out of necessity, or otherwise. Does anyone find Toslink unacceptable?