The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable with RCA connectors or a fiber optic cable with TOSLINK connectors. This is why QED products are recommended by so many of the world’s leading hi-fi and home theatre equipment manufacturers. The Toslink cable (SPDIF Digital Optical cable) consists of an optical fiber cable with a SPDIF connector on both ends. More commonly known as an optical, digital optical, or fiber-optic audio connection, the TOSLINK connectionsystem(both port and cable)was originally developed by Toshiba. furthermore the question of interference; because the signal is Digital it’s either there or it isn’t.

What Is the Optical Audio Port, and When Should I Use It?

Royal Mail First Class International Tracked Airmail - Items are usually delivered within 10-15 working days. surround sound (such as DTS audio codec or Dolby Digital codec); it cannot support lossless surround formats that require greater bandwidth. While that question could be a historical inquiry unto itself, here's the short version: when TOSLINK came out, it was overpowered for most people's needs, and by the time the average consumer was rocking an intense home theater, the TOSLINK cable had been eclipsed by the HDMI cable. The optical transmitter module incorporates an LED (or a laser diode) as a light emitting element, and a circuit that drives it.Now I think the biggest advantage of coaxial over consumer optical is that coaxial is will work better over distances greater than ten feet, though I could be wrong about that. If you have any reason at all to isolate the audio signal from a digital source it is almost always, without a doubt, easiest to do so via TOSLINK cables. While the ADAT Lightpipe format uses the same JIS F05 connectors as TOSLINK, the ADAT Lightpipe data format is not compatible with S/PDIF. Optical cables with a Toslink (Toshiba Link) connector slot into a matching socket on both source and receiver.

CNET The Audiophiliac asks the experts: Do digital audio - CNET

This resulted from the desire of the various stakeholders to have at least sufficient similarities between the two interfaces to allow the use of the same, or very similar, designs for interfacing ICs. TOSLINK is just the shortened trade name for Toshiba Link, both named for the company that introduced optical audio as a consumer standard. Coaxial might not be as widespread as its rival optical connection these days, but you'll still find it at the back of certain AV receivers, integrated amplifiers and TVs. Getting back to the original question -- which connection scheme sounds best -- he said, "All I can do is make generalizations, which are very much system and grounding dependent.The cable end is flat on one side and rounded on the other, so there's only one orientation for plugging it in. You can check if your devices support TOSLINK audio cabling by looking on the back of the device for the distinct TOSLINK port.