Are all optical leads equal?

Vipen

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well clearly not in price but as the price ranges so far, is say a £20 toslink cable better than say a £30 one made by the same company?

is it just better robustuness, insulation, etc?

all these cables after buying a plasma is straining the wallet but don't want to buy bad interconnects on visual or audio.

what you think?

btw, i don't have coax anymore as i opted for the (painfully slow, sorry again) dmr-e55 which has optical only. and i need two leads, one for xbox too!!
 
send an email to mark grant in the power buys section.
the ones i got from him the other day seem fine to me
£25 inc p&p
 
You can also get an optical to coax converter and then buy really cheap coax leads. As far as I know, as long as you're transmitting digital audio the data is all error checked and therefore reproduced exactly (or not at all). I prefer coax for digital audio just cause its so much cheaper especially for long lengths, optical is just overkill IMO.

Spicy
 
Optical leads either work or they don't. Apart from the robustness and prettyness of the more expensive cables, they achieve nothing.

CPC do some for about £1 and they are absolutely fine. I would absolutely challenge anyone to show me any difference between that and a £30 one in terms of performance.
 
spicy_fajita said:
You can also get an optical to coax converter and then buy really cheap coax leads.
Nothing personal but I would avoid this if at all possible. Purely for the fact that it's another connection. Go straight through if at all possible.
 
I still find it funny how Optical cable induces such disgust in audiophiles! Nothing wrong it at all IMO.

Hell, even Wadia provides TOSlink inputs (and AT&T of course ;) )!!
 
Knightshade said:
Nothing personal but I would avoid this if at all possible. Purely for the fact that it's another connection. Go straight through if at all possible.

I know its a hassle to have the extra connection but quality wise because it is digital there should be no problem, unless there is a serious problem with your cables - like they have cuts in them or something like that. It may be useful where you have to use optical over a long distance which is pretty expensive.

Opticals are pretty cool and suffer no interference but they are expensive and are more prone to breakage and are much harder to repair. I actually would prefer to use optical just because of the cool factor but cost and maintenance wise coax is easier and the performance should not be noticeable except in cases where you've lots of interference but I can't imagine anyone experiencing this - maybe I'm wrong :blush:

Spicy
 

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