Why optical audio

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What Exactly Is Optical Audio? Optical is usually restricted to 96kHz. The main downside to a coaxial digital connection is the potential transfer of electrical noise between your kit. Noise is bad news when it comes to sound quality, but it exists in all AV components to one degree or another.

Unfortunately, using a coaxial connection enables noise to travel along the cable from the source to your amplifier. So, in a modern home cinema setting, its uses are quite limited. Traditionally, in a home cinema environment, optical connections tend to be used to transmit compressed Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound. Optical cables with a Toslink Toshiba Link connector slot into a matching socket on both source and receiver.

Although HDMI has taken over as the main socket of choice for many manufacturers, optical outputs are still common on games consoles, Blu-ray players , set-top boxes and televisions. This optical audio cable has male-to-male gold-plated connectors and is available in several different lengths.

Just make sure you double-check the length of the cable you are buying and get the right size for your needs. A well-made optical audio cable should work well up to 5 meters. You may even find that you will get a good signal at 10 meters or more. However, by the time you get to this length, then you are more likely to run into problems. It would certainly be worth considering buying a higher-quality digital optical cable for longer runs. The electronics built into your hardware can vary in quality.

These extenders use Cat5 or Cat6 cable to send the optical audio signal over very long distances. Many people wonder which connection they should use to send audio between their devices — optical or HDMI cables. If you are sending the same type of audio format, then it will sound the same regardless if you are using optical or HDMI. This is where you can send audio from a TV to a soundbar or AV receiver.

The bottom line? For the same audio format, they offer the same audio quality. So this support for higher resolution audio formats may one reason to choose coaxial over optical audio. In theory, coaxial could be. Before you hear a digital audio signal it needs to be converted to analog audio. A DAC performs this process. A poorly designed device may create audible differences when using the optical or coaxial inputs.

The one you choose will usually depend on the connections on your other devices. Or, the cables that you have available. One scenario you may come across is that you have an optical output on your device a DVD or Blu-ray player, for example , but only a coaxial input on your amplifier.

However, there is a simple solution. You can buy an optical audio adapter to convert the audio to an RCA coaxial output like the one pictured below:. This will take an optical output — like from your Blu-ray player — and output the audio signal via coaxial. The one highlighted above is bi-directional. This means that you can also use it to convert a coaxial output to an optical input. Which might prove to be really useful. The use of converters can solve many potential problems when we need to mix and match different audio types and connections.

You just need to make sure that the converter will pass all the signals that you want.