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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: Chuck on November 24, 2003, 01:53:49 PM
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Is there any difference in using one over the other to input into your DAT if you have both options? Like my AD1000 has both outputs and I notice everybody uses the coax SPDIF output.
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coax is more robust, that's why you see so many people using it...
optical cables are getting sturdier but coax became standard because optical was fairly fragile. Optical still isn't as robust but it is better...
I've toyed with getting an optical out for my modsbm-1 and running into a jb3 but I don't treat my cables nicely enough to do that!
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I got a right angle optical cable from Sound pro's that is very sturdy. Every optical cable before this one has been way too fragile for me. especially the sony 7 pin one.
Anyway the soundprofessionals one is real sturdy. you can bend it all kinds of ways, I even hit it with the dremel by accident when moding the targus rack sliced it a little but it didn't go through.....I got lucky. To end the ramble it's a tough optical cable.
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IS this it:
SOUND PROFESSIONALS
TOSLINK TO MINI OPTICAL CABLE WITH RIGHT ANGLE CONNECTORS
SP-TMOC-RA
$25.00
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yep thats it. Keep in mind it's tos>mini for the JB3. They have it tos>tos though.
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Thanks +T
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Late entry, but I have that same cable and it's a tank!
I don't think Clayton's managed to break his yet either...
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Used to sell electronics for a couple of years and was finally able to get this explanation out of an Onkyo rep who knew his shit pretty well on the Optical vs. Coax debate:
Coax digital is the better way to go, because it is sending a verbatim signal which is in effect a direct transfer of an electrical impulse between two components, whereas the Optical signal is taking that electrical impulse and converting it into a light impulse at the output of devise A and then re-converting this back into an electical one in devise B. As a result of this, with a good piece of Coax, you will lose less detail than you will with an optical cable. In other words, it was implied that the Coax was a more "pure" and stable way of doing things.
Methinks you would have to have pretty good ears to discern much of a difference between the two though...
Not to get off on a tangent or anything, but I also heard from a couple of different people that there is a fair difference between a glass and plastic fibre Optical cable, the glass type being "quicker" and more accurate of the two and of course considerably more expensive. Same deal with the good ears I guess.
I suspect that most people use Coax for taping because it is a more durable cable, in particular the ends in the Optical format being much more sensitive to getting scratched which becomes more tricky when you are continually connecting and disconnecting that cable during field use.