I know about the debate over cables has raged for many years with regards to analogue audio and video wiring, but with digital cables, how does the quality of a cable affect quality? If its an optical cable carrying a stream of on and off signals, why should cables make a difference? I can appreciate that poor termination/soldering etc can make a difference, but would it really justify some of the silly prices you see for optical cables? I need one for my PS3 and am probably going to buy a basic £20QED one. Why pay more?
Premium digital optical interconnects a con?
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professorhat
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baldemort:I need one for my PS3 and am probably going to buy a basic £20QED one. Why pay more?
For connection of a PS3 to an AV amp, I agree with you.
For connection of a PS3 to an AV amp, I agree with you.
I hear and agree baldemort.
Why do they also make such a fuss about them having gold connectors - I would have thought that so long as it is a secure connection whether it's gold, ABS or wood (eco friendly but silly I know) it would not matter on an optical cable end.
Cheers Si.
Why do they also make such a fuss about them having gold connectors - I would have thought that so long as it is a secure connection whether it's gold, ABS or wood (eco friendly but silly I know) it would not matter on an optical cable end.
Cheers Si.
Got me some Belkin AV ones for just over £6 a pair at Dixons online. A bargain from a reputable manufacturer. I have bought expensive wires in the past for my hifi. I have numerous Audioquest, ortofon, Linn, Chord, QEDand Naim stuff. It does make a difference, but not to quite the degree that some would have you believe. IMHO, of course...
Sliced Bread
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I've heard the following justifications for improvements bought about from expensive (within reason) optical cables (Although I've never compared optical leads, so until I do, I personally do not have any opinions either way):
1) The material the actual optic fibre is made of (glass vs plastic) and the quality of the construction (i.e. clarity through the cable) will make the output of the cable easier to read by the amp).
2) Thicker optical cables (with a thicker protection around the optics) are physically stronger and harder to bend. This prevents the fibres inside from cracking which can effect the clarity of the light coming through the output).
Got to say that I 100% agree with this though:
soulton:....I would have thought that so long as it is a secure connection whether it's gold, ABS or wood (eco friendly but silly I know) it would not matter on an optical cable end.
1) The material the actual optic fibre is made of (glass vs plastic) and the quality of the construction (i.e. clarity through the cable) will make the output of the cable easier to read by the amp).
2) Thicker optical cables (with a thicker protection around the optics) are physically stronger and harder to bend. This prevents the fibres inside from cracking which can effect the clarity of the light coming through the output).
Got to say that I 100% agree with this though:
soulton:....I would have thought that so long as it is a secure connection whether it's gold, ABS or wood (eco friendly but silly I know) it would not matter on an optical cable end.
There are thousands of miles of optical cables laid all over the world, so i'm pretty sure that decent quality glass/plastic media should be cheap as chips. Surely it wont be that expensive to get such cables with a decent connection on them.
I needed some blank DVDRW's and whilst buying them was told by a chap in Music Matters today that the better cables are better because they result in less package loss. The more bits if binary code that are lost, the more error correction takes place at the other end and the worse the picture or sound gets. Maybe.
But what's fascinating is that not one of these cable maufacturers has done a test to show this. Come on. If a manufacturer could simply and effectively PROVE that their cables worked with clear quantitative results, why the hell wouldn't they? I ran a broadband test once and it measured speed and package loss. I had none at all. This was sent from my pc, along lord knows how many miles of optical cables, across countless connections etc, and all the way back to my pc. How much package loss? None. All through miles of bog standard cables. Not a Chord/QED/Monster etc etc etc cable in sight.
I needed some blank DVDRW's and whilst buying them was told by a chap in Music Matters today that the better cables are better because they result in less package loss. The more bits if binary code that are lost, the more error correction takes place at the other end and the worse the picture or sound gets. Maybe.
But what's fascinating is that not one of these cable maufacturers has done a test to show this. Come on. If a manufacturer could simply and effectively PROVE that their cables worked with clear quantitative results, why the hell wouldn't they? I ran a broadband test once and it measured speed and package loss. I had none at all. This was sent from my pc, along lord knows how many miles of optical cables, across countless connections etc, and all the way back to my pc. How much package loss? None. All through miles of bog standard cables. Not a Chord/QED/Monster etc etc etc cable in sight.
Just tried to measure packet loss using ping on my pc. Again, no packet loss. It's amazing how much rubbish these folk will talk to sell us stuff.
professorhat
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I've gone through the difference of sending info over the internet and sending audio across an optical / HDMI cable before and I'm not going to do it again - have a search on my old posts. Nevertheless, be sure it's actually a very different process.
I'm not saying it's the same, but if I can ping that far and get no loss at all, I'm sure that a metre's worth of toslink cable should be just fine. As long as the media is good quality, the terminations and lenses used are decent enough then I don't buy it. having said that, somebody mentioned jitter and bandwidth in another post and having looked into it, I agree. I have read posts on other sites where folks have measured jitter with different cables and the differences are there to be seen. So maybe there is value in better optical cables. How much of a difference said jitter will cause to sound quality is another matter. I may borrow a cable from a dealer and give it a try.
professorhat
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baldemort:I'm not saying it's the same, but if I can ping that far and get no loss at all, I'm sure that a metre's worth of toslink cable should be just fine.
It's because the information is transferred differently between your PC and a server on the internet that you get no packet loss. Saying that you can ping that far and get no loss has absolutely nothing to do with how audio information is transferred across an optical cable in a hi-fi setup.
It's because the information is transferred differently between your PC and a server on the internet that you get no packet loss. Saying that you can ping that far and get no loss has absolutely nothing to do with how audio information is transferred across an optical cable in a hi-fi setup.
The explanation I was given by an 'expert' was that the optical cable itself causes packet loss. I use cable for my net access. If my miles of cable are not giving packet loss, wouldn't the same apply to my 1m toslink? (not including lenses and terminations etc).
professorhat
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Okay, I'll explain it again
The thing is, with any length of cable, there will always be some losses of signal - the reason you're not getting packet loss on a computer is because it uses a protocol called TCP/IP which uses strict error control to ensure any losses are resent. So when you ping something, although it says there's no packet loss, what it means is no packets were lost because the error control built into the TCP/IP protocol ensured that any packets which were lost were resent, thus meaning in the end, no packets were lost.
Audio data is not sent using the TCP/IP protocol because the information has to be in order and instant - with TCP/IP, the packets can arrive in any order and there will be a delay while any lost packets are requested and resent and the computer sorts them all out before displaying information. Clearly this solution would not work with an amplifier receiving audio data from a CD player.
The thing is, with any length of cable, there will always be some losses of signal - the reason you're not getting packet loss on a computer is because it uses a protocol called TCP/IP which uses strict error control to ensure any losses are resent. So when you ping something, although it says there's no packet loss, what it means is no packets were lost because the error control built into the TCP/IP protocol ensured that any packets which were lost were resent, thus meaning in the end, no packets were lost.
Audio data is not sent using the TCP/IP protocol because the information has to be in order and instant - with TCP/IP, the packets can arrive in any order and there will be a delay while any lost packets are requested and resent and the computer sorts them all out before displaying information. Clearly this solution would not work with an amplifier receiving audio data from a CD player.
Ah. Thanks for taking the time to reply, my friend. So basically, pretty much everything i thought, was wrong. We can have packet loss, and jitter then. Which i take it means that error correction results in dodgy audio. Maybe i will try a better cable then...
Out of interest though, and only if you have time, why do dsl speed tests etc measure for packet loss if it cant happen with net connections? or does it only happen in extreme cases?
Out of interest though, and only if you have time, why do dsl speed tests etc measure for packet loss if it cant happen with net connections? or does it only happen in extreme cases?
professorhat
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Basically, yes - it's not that it can't happen - even though TCP/IP has vast amounts of error control built into it (it was designed by the US military for communications use during WW3!), it's not infallible. Plus not all programs use TCP/IP, some use something called UDP which is essentially the same without the error control - it's used where accuracy isn't important but speed is.
So DSL tests will check for lost packets because, if you are getting loads, this indicates a problem somewhere which needs investigating.
So DSL tests will check for lost packets because, if you are getting loads, this indicates a problem somewhere which needs investigating.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's nice to have an understanding of what's going on as opposed to just blindly taking as gospel what the hifi 'gurus' would have us believe. Especially if you're a sceptical cynic like me.
The only other though that crosses my mind is just how much of an effect the packet losses would have. I did a quick dig about and found data that suggests that fibre optic cales have an error rate of one bit in every 10000000000. Dolby digital runs at about 448kbps. So surely that's not an awful lot of error correction is it? Will it really audibly make that much of a difference? Technology has surely advanced to the point that decent modern equipment can correct such tiny and infrequent errors to the point that they are inaudible.
Also, does this mean that the better the kit, the better the error correction so the less the need for top notch cables?
The only other though that crosses my mind is just how much of an effect the packet losses would have. I did a quick dig about and found data that suggests that fibre optic cales have an error rate of one bit in every 10000000000. Dolby digital runs at about 448kbps. So surely that's not an awful lot of error correction is it? Will it really audibly make that much of a difference? Technology has surely advanced to the point that decent modern equipment can correct such tiny and infrequent errors to the point that they are inaudible.
Also, does this mean that the better the kit, the better the error correction so the less the need for top notch cables?
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