high quality glass fibre optical cables have a much higher bandwidth.
But... do you need it? The maximum bandwidth that you can use is the bandwidth of the transmitter/receiver; the specification bandwidth of the system.
If, for instance, I have two 10Mb-ethernet devices, I will gain
nothing by connecting them with a Gb cable.
...which some claim to have outperformed...
In what way, and by what measurable amounts?
I know it is not a welcome sentiment amongst many "audiophiles," but any wariness when looking at claims made by cable companies should be increased 100% when it comes to these digital cables. If one toslink cable "outperforms" another, then let them show the numbers. After that remains the question as to whether the difference can be heard or not.
Having said all that, you might think that I would be too cynical to ever buy a glass optical cable instead of a plastic one. Actually, you'd be wrong
. Partly because we all have our prejudices, whether they are reasonable or not and, true ot not, glass just seems to me to be the better material. After all, it is used to reliably transmit data over large distances at high speeds.
I haven't used toslink for a long time, but I used to use it quite a lot. My fairly long input/output digital cables from my PC soudcard were toslink, and, in the days of minidisk, and before portable players came with USB, I used toslink for that too.
What I'd be interested in , if I were setting it up now, would be...
1. Which is physically the most robust.
2. Which can be bent to the smallest radius.
3. Which has been shown to most accurately transmit the data with the least jitter.
On item 2, I once thought I had broken a toslink cable. All that happened was the box had got pushed against the wall and bent it too sharply. Thankfully it was not broken, and giving it the proper space for a less sharp bend restored the sound at once. That Toslink cables cannot transmit a clean signal around corners that are too sharp is not at all theoretical.
On item 3, I don't really believe that jitter is going to be much a problem between two devices, but if one cable can be shown to cause less than another, at a realistic price, then --- why not!
Sorry to sing the same old song again, but I will not buy
any cable from companies that make ridiculous claims about, eg, networking cables. However much their speaker cables might suit my speakers, their ethics do not suit me. I'd rather deal with an honest company, and a whole army of audiophiles telling me the speaker cable sounds better to them will not shift me on that.
PS... Wikkipedia
interesting page. Head-fi
Conversation. Personally, I'd use
this a benchmark, at least for price.
But... You've probably done the googling too, and, if I don't stop here I'ma going to spend the rest of the afternoon surfing on this subject
