Digital optical cable- how much£
Discussion
normalbloke said:
I'm wondering whether to spend £5 or push the boat out to a tenner.
When it comes to optical cables I actually prefer the cheaper, lighter weight ones because I find the SPDIF connections are just generally a bit naff and prone to popping out on heavier cables.
Otherwise, buy what tickles your fancy there is no discernible sonic advantage to buying expensive ones in this case.
Otherwise, buy what tickles your fancy there is no discernible sonic advantage to buying expensive ones in this case.
AdamV12V said:
Better to spend your money then upgrading the amp than on an expensive optical cable….
We've just had 6 weeks and four pages of discussion to get him to the point of an amp upgrade to a Cambridge Audio ARX100; something with some balls that can play loud. I'm curious too; just what sort of amp 'upgrade' is someone likely to get for the fiver price difference between to different optical cables? Do tell.
Anyway, the reliability (re: your earlier comment) is no different between ARC and optical. Mistreat any cable and it will fail. If anything, optical is less trouble than HDMI - Hardly Developed. Mostly Intermittent, but your mileage may vary.
RSstuff said:
I want to buy a couple of optical cables to connect my Cambridge amp and OLED Panasonic TV/ DVD player. So what's the minimum I should be spending on them?
The only time it starts to make an appreciable difference is when the core is glass fibre rather than plastic, and it's a lot to do with the quality of the polishing on the end of the cut fibre. Even then, you're unlikely to get any benefit from that at audio signal levels. The quality of the electro-optical circuits in the gear is a much bigger factor. Buy something nice for aesthetic reasons if you wish if that's what an extra fiver gets you. The plug-end mouldings should be the same, but I have found slightly more expensive cables had a more positive click when connected.
Don't fall for anything gold plated. It's a light connection, not electrical. Gold plating has bugger all impact except for window dressing.
Lucid_AV said:
We've just had 6 weeks and four pages of discussion to get him to the point of an amp upgrade to a Cambridge Audio ARX100; something with some balls that can play loud.
It was only 2 weeks 
. I was being influenced a bit by the gold plated cable ends, though what you say about that makes sense now. And I wont be able to see blingy cables in situ. Lucid_AV said:
AdamV12V said:
Better to spend your money then upgrading the amp than on an expensive optical cable….
We've just had 6 weeks and four pages of discussion to get him to the point of an amp upgrade to a Cambridge Audio ARX100; something with some balls that can play loud. I'm curious too; just what sort of amp 'upgrade' is someone likely to get for the fiver price difference between to different optical cables? Do tell.
Anyway, the reliability (re: your earlier comment) is no different between ARC and optical. Mistreat any cable and it will fail. If anything, optical is less trouble than HDMI - Hardly Developed. Mostly Intermittent, but your mileage may vary.
There wasn't any mention of a fiver in the OP post, he was asking how much to spend on a cable... Im sure we are all aware you can spend £5 or £5000 on a cable if you really want to. Anyway, I totally agree with your comments on cables.
Not that I think it will make any difference to the OP and his setup, but HDMI-ARC does actually support more bandwidth, but only useful for top end HD audio or the likes of Dolby Atmos etc... eARC compatible devices needed for those really though.
The more useful difference to the advantage of HDMI-ARC, is that you can control of volume and on-off of the amp by just the TV remote functions.
heisthegaffer said:
Road2Ruin said:
ARC is easier and more reliable, if your amp supports it. A new TV is very likely to support it.
Is it really more reliable? I've always found HDMI in General to be more flaky than a simple optical connection?After first cabling it all up with a 1.5mtr HDMI I kept getting dropouts every 5-10 seconds, just a brief blip. Switch cables to a shorter 1m cable, problem solved, switched back to old 1.5m cable (short one too short to use permanently), and problem now also gone!
Turns out its was down to the seating of the cable in the socket. A few tests in and out, showed that randomly would give dropouts or not, even though on both occasions it appeared to be a snug fit. The longer cable was just the ARC ready cable that came with the Samsung TV, so whilst nothing spectacular it wasnt really junk quality either. Anyway its working perfectly now...
Never had such problems with optical I have to say....
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