|   Digital Coax sounds better than Toslink - what gives? | Breezer88888
May 7, 2003 5:15 AM | | I just got gave up my stereo and went mult-channel. So of course I bought the necessary Monster interconnects for DBS and DVD (digital coax and toslink). I was experimenting when I noticed that my DVD player sounded much better with the digital coax cable. The Rolling Stones sounded flat (no pun intended, well maybe) thru the toslink. And movies didn't have as much punch using the toslink.
So why do practically all receivers have many Optical inputs and only one Digital Coax input? I can't be the only one hearing the difference here, right? I know I'm old fashioned and might have a bias toward the thicker Digital Coax than that thin Toslink, but I don't think so.
So what gives? |
| There is only one explanation. | Smokey
May 7, 2003 2:22 PM | | That optical circuity that convert electrical signal pulses to optical and its appropriate transport system don't deliver the timing of the signal (synchronization) right on time. |
| There are basically TWO explanations: | woodman
May 8, 2003 9:00 AM | | Explanation #1 -
There is a defect of some sort in the optical chain ... in the conversion circuitry of either the DVD player or in the A/V receiver - or in the Toslink cable itself. This is the least likely of the two explanations however.
Explanation #2 -
The "difference" between the two was created by YOU - by your attitudes, beliefs and expectations (which I call ABEs) - namely your
i "bias toward the thicker Digital Coax than that thin Toslink".
This is the more likely explanation than #1 since there should be no difference whatsoever between the two.
woodman |
| Guilty of leading the witness | Breezer88888
May 8, 2003 8:39 PM | | Hi Woodman,
There's a chance that you could be right. But I really, really tried to be objective. After all, the last thing I want to do is to spend money on another Toslink. I'll have to settle it with some friends for an old fashioned blind-fold test.
Thanks,
Breezer |
| If you're hearing a difference, then you ARE hearing a difference | satz
May 8, 2003 11:30 PM | | Hey,
in the end they are your ears that hear the sound. If you think Coax sounds better than Toslink, or vice versa, then it's not up to anyone else to tell you that there is no difference.
Perhaps via scientific measurement there might be no difference, but it's pretty arrogant of people just to claim outright that there is NO difference to the sound. |
| And SATZ da name o' dat tune! | Breezer88888
May 9, 2003 6:05 AM | | Thanks!
As for scientific measurement, I don't know if they can measure what we humans perceive to be warmth. All those wattts per channels going into ohms, well, its what hits our ears that really matter. A personal preference for sure. All the more reason for eBay to help us unload unwanted stuff after we're done with them. Unfortunately, with only one Digital Coax input on my receiver, Toslink looks like its always going to be part of my system. But why should anyone need to pay almost double the price on a "better" Toslink cable to keep up with what we get from Digital Coax?
Breezer |
| Hold on there satz.... | Monstrous Mike
May 9, 2003 12:41 PM | | <b>Hey,
in the end they are your ears that hear the sound. </b>
That's not quite true. Our ears are simply sensors or instruments which register sounds around us and transmit that information to the brain. It is our brain that interprets that information, giving it some context. Our brains tell us whether the sound is enjoyable or irritating. And also, based on complex set of memory patterns and associations, we recognize certain sounds.
Scientific instrumentation is much more sensitive than the human ear having a greater dynamic range, lower threshold of detection, etc. Instruments for sonic measurement cannot however interpret the sounds they are measuring. We need very complex processing to attempt this. For example, there are now computer programs to recognize voices but computers are a long way from duplicating the capabilities of the brain in this area.
Maybe I should get to my point. Our brains are far from faultless when it comes to recognizing sounds. There are multitude of factors that can affect our perception of sound like your mood, background noises, audio memory, orientation of your head, your expectation and beliefs, etc.
As such, if you think you hear differences in cables, like optical vs digital coax, you may be jumping to an obvious conclusion (i.e. the cables caused the difference) when in fact there are many other explanations that simply can't be dismissed out of hand.
I find this phenomenon very similar to the way a guy like James Van Praagh works. He of course claims he can talk to your dead relatives (personally I wish he could talk to dead famous people and perhaps do some good for the world but I digress). Anyways, using methods such as cold or hot reading, he can make it seem like he knows a whole lot about you and your deceased relatives. You find you asking yourself "How could he know that about poor Uncle Fred. He must therefore be talking to him".
I believe it is the same priciple with cable "listening". |
| You can't compare sonic quality, unless it is instantaneous. | Smokey
May 9, 2003 1:59 PM | | I have tried very hard to compare sonic quality of two sources, or two cables or two speakers, and unless the switching is instantaneous, it is almost impossible to do. For example, by the time you get up and change the setting or test parameter and sit back down to evaluate, the reference point has diminished. So when comparing two "things" sonically, unless it is instannaious, forget about any credible results :) |
| You can't compare sonic quality, unless it is instantaneous. | Breezer88888
May 9, 2003 5:42 PM | | I agree there Smokey, especially the part about the reference point being diminished. But think back to pre-digital days when it was really heard to compare. Music tracks had to be re-wound, or albums had to be re-cued. Now we can compare at the flip of a remote button. Well, almost.
I haven't given this a more serious audition yet (Mother's Day coming you know). But I have digital coax and the toslink both connected from my DVD player to my receiver. I can toggle back and forth by using my remote control to change the digital input source. It's not quite instanteous, but close. I'll drop a note after I've done a good test.
Breezer |
| Not quite, Smokey.... | Monstrous Mike
May 10, 2003 1:32 AM | | I think what you really mean to say is that it is very hard to compare when the differences are subtle.
Large, obvious differences should be apparent even when using slack, unsophisticated testing methods. |
| I don't know if I was saying that. | Smokey
May 11, 2003 12:04 PM | | Hey Mike
>I think what you really mean to say is that it is very hard to compare when the differences are subtle.
I guess what I was saying is that you can compare subtle difference as long as it is instantaneous :) |
| re: Digital Coax sounds better than Toslink - what gives? | ne_surfer
May 26, 2003 6:53 AM | | They both should sound identical, assuming that there is not a defect in the circuits involved. There should be no transmission errors in either, and hey, this is digital, so you receive exactly what you sent. If you looked at a block diagram of a DVD player, you would see that the same digital stream is connected to both the coax and optical output blocks, in the reciever the coax and optical blocks both feed into the preamp. Given that both transports are error free, then the sound must be the same. That said, I prefer the optical Toslink because the DVD player and receiver are electrically isolated when connected, unlike with the coax. I'll bet that no one could tell the difference between coax and optical in a blindfold test. In fact, I'd suggest you try a blindfold test since you have both cables. Get someone to switch back and forth, you say which cable you think it is. |
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