Glass v.s. Plastic Toslink


Is there a real difference in the sound quality between a plastic and a glass Toslink cable used on your Apple computer running into a DAC?
stickman451
Hi chrisr,
Your conclusions are opposite most everything I've read. Glass optical cables came from the medical field. The company I chose, Silfatec, does mainly medical.
I have tried a few plastic, even one more expensive from Chord, and they seemed great for the money, but these glass ones bettered all of them, at my house, with my listening panel. Not the least bit edgy, or sheeny as some of the plastic ones.
Everybody's different :)
Yes - I know... glass I have tried were the sonicwave and another one... ihave got to try the silflex then someday.
however, the red LED looks better, smoother, easier to look at at the end of the monster cable plastic monofilament than at the end of the 280 strands glass cable I have.
In theory, glass is better to conduct light, no doubt, but I bet that the strands within my audio cable are fractured because of bends and frictions. the length I use is 3ft. I have tried 2 glass toslink based on opinions, but plastic stays in.
The thread was started quite a while back, but I'll chime in...

I've been using the Sonicwave cable mentioned here. Easily better than any plastic toslink cable I've used - Kimber, Audioquest, and 2 others that escape my memory.

I've heard from a few sources that the connectors are critical in optical. Mine click in pretty snug. One or two of the others didn't do this so well. Another part of the connector is the length of the pin, so to speak, that goes into the component - some are too long, some are too short. There was a glass cable that a lot of people didn't like very much, and it happened to not fit tightly. I think it was a Parts Express cable? Or maybe they sold it. People on the Red Wine Audio circle at Audio Circle were complaining about it, as were a few others elsewhere.

At the end of the day, what sounds best is a personal thing. My Sonicwave cable sounds better than anything else I've tried. Then again, it's the only glass cable I've tried. And for once, it was easily the cheapest one I've tried.