optical leads

[admin_exported]

is it worth buying cheap or expensive optical lead and does it make any difference,, i am using cambridge optical now five years old between cd transport and musical fidelity v-3 dac,

 

[professorhat]

In my opinion, it's worth spending the amount on an optical cable which will benefit your system i.e. spending £100 on a cable for a £200 system makes no sense, but could make sense on a system worth £2,000+.

Given your opinion on HDMI cables though, I'm surprised you are asking.

 

[Anonymous]

hi professorhat its just that i have used so many hdmi leads and i cannot see or hear any difference,, between them,, speaker cable i can hear the dfiference., optical i am not used to so i dont know if it is worth paying a lot for it, i have tried to get a lead on loan to try before i buy but my dealer says they are in sealed box so i had to rule that out as a option,, i only need 1m optical lead

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not convinced that there is a sonic difference between different optical cables. I would certainly buy one of decent quality, but don't see the need to get carried away.

 

[d4v3pum4]

Fisual Pro at a fiver gets my vote. It is identical in every way to a QED optical I have and fits well. I've had expensive optical cables fall out on me so £ doesn't necessarily equal good performance. That said, if the cable fits okay, you won't hear any difference IMO.

 

[Anonymous]

i have a cambridge audio one like you and that is just fine, stick with that in my opinion.

 

[RobGardner]

I've tried a few inexpensive (freebie, Nikkai, Canbridge Audio) optical leads and could not hear much difference (if any) between them when used between my Cyrus DAB 8 tuner and Cyrus DAC-XP. The Van Den Hul Opticoupler was a notch up in quality but I decided not to buy one as the sound of DAB radio is so awful that buying a better cable was not going to help it overmuch. Depending on the installation it might be worth your while checking this cable out. (Chord Optical cable was also recommended by the provider of the VdH) I have been told ( so it must be true!) that a glass optical cable will sound better again, but of course you will need to spend more! If you have got the co-axial option I would use that every time in place of optical.

 

[PJPro]

professorhat:
In my opinion, it's worth spending the amount on an optical cable which will benefit your system i.e. spending £100 on a cable for a £200 system makes no sense, but could make sense on a system worth £2,000+.....[snip]

Good advice I think.

I recently bought a £30 cable for my £300 HDR. Is it better than a £5 cable? I don't know, I've never bought a £5 cable. However, I don't think £30 is too much to pay and represents about my limit....without tangible evidence being provided that more money = better performance.

By evidence I mean that I can tell the difference, not others!

 

[Alec]

PJPro:Good advice I think. I recently bought a £30 cable for my £300 HDR. Is it better than a £5 cable? I don't know, I've never bought a £5 cable. However, I don't think £30 is too much to pay and represents about my limit....without tangible evidence being provided that more money = better performance. By evidence I mean that I can tell the difference, not others!

i would have answered almost word for word like this.

 

[clearer_audio]

Hello,

With optical cables the quality of the materials is very important. So if you go for a cable that uses good quality materials which has been manufactured correctly then it should work well. Unless you have a very high-end system then there would be no need to spend £100s.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Darren

 

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have a £70 'Nike' optical cable and a £5 optical cable. Through my system I hear zero difference.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks everyone i might just keep the cambride ones, as there seems to be very little differences between optical cables, this looks the same as the hdmi cable debate thats still going on in the whfi forums..

 

[RobGardner]

I don't wish to contradict myself but think that there is more than a very little difference between the cheap optical cables and the VdH Optocoupler, it was just that in the application I was using the cable in, the improvements were outweighed by the fact that DAB sounds pretty awful, so spending £45 was only going to highlight evenmore so how awful DAB actually sounds and make me even more irritated at having spent far to much money on a DAB radio.. I should have stuck to radio broadcast over the digital TV system as this sounds better and my PVR will record any shows concerts etc that I wanted. If you are looking to use your connector in a different context then you may find it is worth upgrading but I would always use co-axial connections if they are available in preference to optical.