Another thing I was thinking about, optical cables and their associated connections are notorious for adding static/pops/crackles to your signal.
I don't even think that's technically possible - it's a digital signal, so it's either there or it isn't. Static can't just appear out of ones and zeroes.
oh?
so how does it happen on all those DAT tapes that i've hard digi-noise on?
bad mechanics, bad connections...it all turns to static, or loss of signal