My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

They should give identical results.

Graham

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...


Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

They should give identical results.


As will two tin cups connected by a string.



--
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"Clyde Slick" wrote in message

"Pooh Bear"
wrote in message ...


Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

They should give identical results.

As will two tin cups connected by a string.

On the face of it, this appears to be total nonsense.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Clyde Slick" wrote in message

"Pooh Bear"
wrote in message ...


Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

They should give identical results.

As will two tin cups connected by a string.

On the face of it, this appears to be total nonsense.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Clyde Slick" wrote in message

"Pooh Bear"
wrote in message ...


Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

They should give identical results.

As will two tin cups connected by a string.

On the face of it, this appears to be total nonsense.

Depends if string is wet.

geoff

On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:15:30 GMT, Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

The optical signal has to be converted from/to an electrical signal.
So theoretically I suppose the coax connection might be cleaner. But
there's no practical difference. On domestic gear both systems use
components costing a few pennies. Which work fine :-)

Laurence Payne writes:

On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:15:30 GMT, Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

The optical signal has to be converted from/to an electrical signal.
So theoretically I suppose the coax connection might be cleaner.

That's one theory.

Other thing to consider with coax connection is that the coaxial
connection can more easily be interfered by electrical signal
and carry noise to your equipment...

In very ideal system coax might be threoretically sliglty better.
In real-life situations it is pretty impossible to say which one
of the potential problems of the coax system or the optical
system cause more problems to the sound...

But there's no practical difference. On domestic gear both systems use
components costing a few pennies. Which work fine :-)

You are right on this.

--
Tomi Engdahl (http://www.iki.fi/then/)
Take a look at my electronics web links and documents at
http://www.epanorama.net/

On 10 Jan 2006 14:17:38 +0200, Tomi Holger Engdahl wrote:


Laurence Payne writes:

On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:15:30 GMT, Paul L wrote:

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

The optical signal has to be converted from/to an electrical signal.
So theoretically I suppose the coax connection might be cleaner.

That's one theory.

Other thing to consider with coax connection is that the coaxial
connection can more easily be interfered by electrical signal
and carry noise to your equipment...

In very ideal system coax might be threoretically sliglty better.
In real-life situations it is pretty impossible to say which one
of the potential problems of the coax system or the optical
system cause more problems to the sound...

In real life systems, the data is digital and unless there are errors,
"slightly better" makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

"Tomi Holger Engdahl" wrote in message

Other thing to consider with coax connection is that the coaxial
connection can more easily be interfered by electrical signal
and carry noise to your equipment...


And ground-loops. But there has to be a very crass interference of any sort
to causre one single bit error, or induce jitter that would cause a bit
error.

geoff

"Paul L" wrote in message
om

My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

The coax connection can create a ground loop, and cause hum. Or it may not,
depending on the rest of your system.

Coax is better for long runs, such as 30 feet or more.

In typical use, there's no practical difference.

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

They are equal.

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

The coaxial connection is superior, although modern digital receiver chips
have narrowed the difference.

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony instructs that the
adjustment for harmonic distortion must be performed with a signal source
delivered by the coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in a measurable way.

"Robert Morein" wrote in message

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

The coaxial connection is superior, although modern
digital receiver chips have narrowed the difference.

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
a measurable way.

No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I'm surprised that Sony is admitting to building such flawed equipment. I'm
surprised that they are building such flawed equipment.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
a measurable way.

No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong enough
to disrupt a digital signal is rare.

mc wrote:

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
a measurable way.

No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong enough
to disrupt a digital signal is rare.

And if the digital signal *does* get disrupted the effect is sudden, huge and
very evident..

There's no 'gradual degradation' with digital signals like losing some HF or
adding a bit of hum. Either it works or it doesn't. Therefore comparisons about
quality are *almost* entirely bogus from first principles.

The exception as I understand it is jitter on the digital signal. If the clock
recovery is poorly implemented, I believe this can degrade the audio a bit.

Graham

"mc" said:

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.


I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong enough
to disrupt a digital signal is rare.


A common mistake.
The S/PDIF signal is analog in nature.
Just as with RF signals, an incorrect termination might cause
reflections ( "a bad SWR") which, in turn, are said to cause jitter.

Jitter doesn't have to be a problem per se.
When the incoming signal in e.g.a DAC is reclocked for instance, the
jitter must be very extreme to have any effect at all.
If that extreme is reached (not likely), the result will be silence,
not degraded audio.

--

"Audio as a serious hobby is going down the tubes."
- Howard Ferstler, 25/4/2005

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:48:01 +0100, Sander deWaal wrote:


"mc" said:

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.


I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong enough
to disrupt a digital signal is rare.


A common mistake.
The S/PDIF signal is analog in nature.
By that definitions, there are no digital signals. All signals are
analog in nature. What makes a signal "digital" is the fact that it can
only be in a very limited number of states, for example positive being a 1
and negative being a zero. It doesn't matter that signal is analog and that
there's an infinite number of values that translate to a 1.


Just as with RF signals, an incorrect termination might cause
reflections ( "a bad SWR") which, in turn, are said to cause jitter.

Jitter doesn't have to be a problem per se.
When the incoming signal in e.g.a DAC is reclocked for instance, the
jitter must be very extreme to have any effect at all.
If that extreme is reached (not likely), the result will be silence,
not degraded audio.

"Sander deWaal" wrote in message
...
"mc" said:

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.


I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong
enough
to disrupt a digital signal is rare.


A common mistake.
The S/PDIF signal is analog in nature.
Just as with RF signals, an incorrect termination might cause
reflections ( "a bad SWR") which, in turn, are said to cause jitter.

SP/DIF is an early, optical method, using a crude plastic fiber, that
actually has limited bandwidth. The resulting fuzziness of the transitions
creates more uncertainty for the input receiver chip. In the case of a
typical input receiver, using a single phase locked loop, the additional
uncertainty causes additional jitter, over the jitter inherent in recovering
the clock from a NRZ encoding scheme.

Because the plastic fiber is a large diameter multimode, the path length
actually is sensitive to distortion of the fiber by mechanical vibration. No
such artifact occurs with coaxial cable, which is modeless at the
frequencies under consideration.

Jitter doesn't have to be a problem per se.
When the incoming signal in e.g.a DAC is reclocked for instance, the
jitter must be very extreme to have any effect at all.

Yes, but reclocking is still not done as a matter of course.

If that extreme is reached (not likely), the result will be silence,
not degraded audio.

Yes, and with any input receiver consisting of a single PLL, the designer
must choose a time constant that is a compromise between low jitter, and the
possible failure to lock.

"mc" wrote in message
. ..

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways? The optical input would be immune to
electromagnetic noise, and that should be the only difference. Normally
they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise strong
enough to disrupt a digital signal is rare.

I was thinking - and someone else pointed out - that it may simply have to
do with their testing logic. There may be some small part of the circuitry
that they want to include or omit from the test procedure at this step.

"mc" wrote in message
. ..

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
a measurable way.

No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
bit-for-bit identical both ways?

Every digital signal is received as an analog signal. The conversion to
digital can be a point where difficulties arise. An ideal digital receiver
is immune to noise and timing problems with its input signals, but nothing's
perfect.

The optical input would be immune to electromagnetic noise, and that
should be the only difference.

Agreed. In fact any grounding problems that may exist can be exagerated by
common kinds of tests that are done on power amps.

Normally they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise
strong enough to disrupt a digital signal is rare.

The digital signal in question is not as robust as it might be. It's in the
1-2 volt peak-to-peak range. Really bad grounding problems can add noise in
the same voltage range.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
:
: "mc" wrote in message
: . ..
:
: "Arny Krueger" wrote in message
: ...
:
: In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
: instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
: must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
: coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
: input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
: a measurable way.
:
: No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.
:
: Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
: should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
: adjustments.
:
: I was wondering the same thing. If it's digital, why isn't it absolutely
: bit-for-bit identical both ways?
:
: Every digital signal is received as an analog signal. The conversion to
: digital can be a point where difficulties arise. An ideal digital receiver
: is immune to noise and timing problems with its input signals, but nothing's
: perfect.
:
: The optical input would be immune to electromagnetic noise, and that
: should be the only difference.
:
: Agreed. In fact any grounding problems that may exist can be exagerated by
: common kinds of tests that are done on power amps. *A*
:
: Normally they should be indistinguishable because electromagnetic noise
: strong enough to disrupt a digital signal is rare.
:
: The digital signal in question is not as robust as it might be. It's in the
: 1-2 volt peak-to-peak range. Really bad grounding problems can add noise in
: the same voltage range. *B*
:
Elsewhere in this thread, you recommend coax for longer (30 ft.) stretches,
that is inconsistent with A and B, Arny :-)

With respect to welldefined edges, optical is clearly superior - even the
plastic 850 nm home variety - to coax.

Rudy

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Robert Morein" wrote in message

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial
and optical jacks. Which connection should I use to get
better sound quality or are they all equal?

The coaxial connection is superior, although modern
digital receiver chips have narrowed the difference.

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony
instructs that the adjustment for harmonic distortion
must be performed with a signal source delivered by the
coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the digital
input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in
a measurable way.

No excuse for this kind of flaw at all.

Indeed, because of the elimination of EMI with optical, if anything Sony
should be recommending the use of the optical input for critical
adjustments.

I'm surprised that Sony is admitting to building such flawed equipment. I'm
surprised that they are building such flawed equipment.

I'll bet this issue is as simple as the input test point for the THD
distortion adjusment is simply tied to the coax digitial in in some way
and not to the optical. Maybe they put the test point in front of a
source selector relay matrix but chose to include only tap. Once again
Morein shows his propensity to leap to conclusions wholly unsupported
by the available facts.

ScottW

"Robert Morein" wrote in message
...

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks. Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are
they all equal?

The coaxial connection is superior, although modern digital receiver chips
have narrowed the difference.

In the service manuals for certain digital preamps, Sony instructs that
the adjustment for harmonic distortion must be performed with a signal
source delivered by the coaxial input. This shows that in some cases, the
digital input receiver can suffer with an optical connection, in a
measurable way.


No it doesn't. I shows Sony have more faith in the integrity of any form of
coax over the variable quality of (potentially cheap-and-nasty) optical.

geoff

"Paul L" wrote in message
om...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.
-S

SimonLW said:

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.

You sound a bit addled. Have you tried inserting a flash card into your
ear? That might clear up your fogginess.

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 07:33:44 -0500, SimonLW wrote:


"Paul L" wrote in message
. com...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.

Of course, but audio bits are *magic* and magic bits always sound better
when passed through expensive cables. Everybody knows this.

It doesn't matter if the cables are so electrically medciore that the
receiver can barely differentiate a zero from a one. It doesn't matter if
the cables are designed without the slightest attention paid to sound
engineering principles. Cables made from iguana spit will sound better than
cables made from plain ordinary copper, but only if they're expensive as
hell.

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 07:33:44 -0500, in rec.audio.tech , "SimonLW"
in wrote:

"Paul L" wrote in message
. com...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.

Network transmissions allow for re-send of packets, audio does not.


--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

Matt Silberstein wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 07:33:44 -0500, in rec.audio.tech , "SimonLW"
in wrote:

"Paul L" wrote in message
. com...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they all
equal?

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.

Network transmissions allow for re-send of packets, audio does not.

I think spdif has a parity bit - but that's your lot !

Graham

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...


Matt Silberstein wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 07:33:44 -0500, in rec.audio.tech , "SimonLW"
in wrote:

"Paul L" wrote in message
. com...
My DVD player and my digital reciever have both coaxial and optical
jacks.
Which connection should I use to get better sound quality or are they
all
equal?

Its all digital right? Unless there is a design flaw, I would think all
the
digital 1s and 0s would arrive in the same order either way. I don't
know
the protocol in these, but on a computer network, the protocol checks to
be
sure the data arrives exactly as it was sent for if a single bit got
changed, the data or program could be trashed.

Network transmissions allow for re-send of packets, audio does not.

I think spdif has a parity bit - but that's your lot !

Yes SP/DIF supports parity, but if the parity is wrong, there are few
alternatives but to mute or conceal the erroneous data.

Matt is correct as far as SP/DIf goes - if an error is detected the only
alternative would be to try to conceal the error as is done with CDs, since
SP/DIF and AES-3 have no protocol and lack a bi-directional connection for
retries.

One major difference between ripping a CD on a computer, and playing it on a
CD player, is that most ripping software supports retries.

When digital audio data is encapsulated in other protocols, such as the
protocols between a computer and its disk drives, then the protocol
encapsulating the transfer can and often does support retries.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

Yes SP/DIF supports parity, but if the parity is wrong, there are few
alternatives but to mute or conceal the erroneous data.

Matt is correct as far as SP/DIf goes - if an error is detected the only
alternative would be to try to conceal the error as is done with CDs,
since
SP/DIF and AES-3 have no protocol and lack a bi-directional connection for
retries.

One major difference between ripping a CD on a computer, and playing it on
a
CD player, is that most ripping software supports retries.

When digital audio data is encapsulated in other protocols, such as the
protocols between a computer and its disk drives, then the protocol
encapsulating the transfer can and often does support retries.

While this is true, you're likely to need retries reading data from the
media (i.e. CD). Error detection and correction are done in the CD player.
That's why you have players running the CD's at a higher speed than 1X, so
the data can be read many times to support error detection and correction.

By the time the digital data leaves the CD player through a digital coax or
optical digital connection, the likelihood that you're going to need error
detection and correction is very small. Your digital connection between the
player and the receiver will either work, or it won't.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.