Optical Audio Cables

[Vapin' Joe]

All the same whether they're cheap or expensive?

 

[Markymark]

"Quality" cabling is a con when it's digital. When it was analogue you had interference. Now it is just marketing hype.

 

[User33236]

All mine, including switch box, are cheapo ones and have worked without issue. With digital it either works or doesn't and if it doesn't it's usually faulty

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Taking of spending tons of money on cables, I read a really interesting article about this the other week, one of the subjects was speaker cable, this guy was saying you can buy expensive cable if you want but unless you've got a >£10k system you won't get any benefit and it will be barely noticeable anyway. Also interesting was matching lengths of cable, he said if it's over 500' you might get a tail-off in quality otherwise no difference. Smoke and mirrors.

 

[Globalti]

It's the old Marketing thing: If it was cheap it couldn't be any good.

Pitching the price on a new pro-level groupset too cheap was what ruined Suntour because nobody thought it could be any good so nobody specced it.

 

[bruce1530]

I work in professional audio, and spend a lot of money on cables. But that's all about how hard wearing they are, and how well they coil. For analogue, once you get above a certain threshold, then everything is "good enough", and with digital they generally either work or they don't....

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Thanks all, cheap it is then

 

[wisdom]

Bought a cheap 1 metre optical cable from Tesco.transformed the sound on the soundbar no end fantastic now and it was £9.99

 

[raleighnut]

Taking of spending tons of money on cables, I read a really interesting article about this the other week, one of the subjects was speaker cable, this guy was saying you can buy expensive cable if you want but unless you've got a >£10k system you won't get any benefit and it will be barely noticeable anyway. Also interesting was matching lengths of cable, he said if it's over 500' you might get a tail-off in quality otherwise no difference. Smoke and mirrors.

Decent speaker cable need not be expensive, I use 4x5m lengths of QED 96 strand (bi-amped set up).....................total cost £20 but every year I cut off the bared section and strip 1/2" of outer and reconnect.

 

[User482]

If there was an audible difference between brands of cable, it would show up in a blind trial. I wonder why the magazines and manufacturers don't do a test?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

The good thing about digital cables is that it is a binary thing; they work or they don't.

 

[Tim Hall]

Decent speaker cable need not be expensive, I use 4x5m lengths of QED 96 strand (bi-amped set up).....................total cost £20 but every year I cut off the bared section and strip 1/2" of outer and reconnect.

Why?

 

[lutonloony]

Decent speaker cable need not be expensive, I use 4x5m lengths of QED 96 strand (bi-amped set up).....................total cost £20 but every year I cut off the bared section and strip 1/2" of outer and reconnect.

Why? (Genuinely courious ). Sorry for the repeat why, must have longer cables than Tim

 

[dim]

cables (not digital) do make a difference and I can vouch for that (I have pretty decent (older) hifi

listen to a track using copper cables a few times, then switch the cables to silver cables and compare .... things like s's may sound like z's etc (a good track to test, is Prince's Purple Rain)

On my system, I have handmade interconnect cables called Silver High Breed Quintessence,.... these are as thick as hosepipes, and to me, they sound the best of the cables that I have (I have a box full of good cables and interconnects that I bought from auction)....

those in conjuction with my older hitachi ssx-102k lc-ofc copper speaker cables (as rare as hen's teeth now) connected to my B&W DM2 transmission speakers sound superb

If you have 'old' ears, let you teenage children compare, and they will tell you that cables do make a difference

 

[Markymark]

cables (not digital) do make a difference and I can vouch for that (I have pretty decent (older) hifi

listen to a track using copper cables a few times, then switch the cables to silver cables and compare .... things like s's may sound like z's etc (a good track to test, is Prince's Purple Rain)

On my system, I have handmade interconnect cables called Silver High Breed Quintessence,.... these are as thick as hosepipes, and to me, they sound the best of the cables that I have (I have a box full of good cables and interconnects that I bought from auction)....

those in conjuction with my older hitachi ssx-102k lc-ofc copper speaker cables (as rare as hen's teeth now) connected to my B&W DM2 transmission speakers sound superb

If you have 'old' ears, let you teenage children compare, and they will tell you that cables do make a difference

Nobody is disputing that. I even said it upthread. Analogue was susceptible to interference. Quality of connections mattered. Better quality equaled better sound. However that's not the case with digital. There's no loss. It's either perfect (as the original at least) or it cuts out. There's do degrading.