coax or optical?

[andrew_mackley]

Probably a stupid question - but how do I decide whether to use coax or optical between the DVD player and AMP - i.e. what is the advantage of both

[jspone]

There are people who say coax is better, but I've compared the two with my Pioneer 737 and Denon 3802, and I honestly can't detect any difference.

John

[HBK757]

Now where have I heard this question before ? :D
I'm a coaxial man personally, go with that. Although like the poster above suggests - there is no difference at all between coax and optical, so go with whatever is convinient.

[andrew_mackley]

Thanks guys - at least I know not to feel quite so stupid when I walk into Richer Sounds later today!

[Phill]

Richer sounds is overpriced for digital interconnects. I think beyond hifi are pretty good. Anyway, as far as digital bitstream goes, I'm of the oppinion that quality of cable makes no difference at all and I'm not alone in this belief. I have a piece of composite video lead that came free with a VCR about ten years ago acting as a digital interconnect. It makes no difference at all.

[Jason Clow]

I was advised that coax was better until the length is greater than 5m, anything longer and I was advised to use optical.

Don't know how true this is!!!

[Mr Flibble]

Well, I use an optical lead - but only so I can use the optical in bit on my amp - sad but true :)

[gz5ztg]

The optical leads can be more fragile than coax types so if you are prone to moving your stuff around a lot it be worth getting coax.

[Phill]

Some people say that optical is better than coax for longer lengths because you can't get electrical interference with optical. Don't worry about getting the best sound, both perform in exactly the same way and due to the fact that it's a digital signal being sent, i.e 0s and 1s, there's no such thing as a good or bad signal, just one that works and one that don't. So long as it works, you cannot improove on it by using a different lead.

You need only worry if you're getting sound drop-out.

[HBK757]

Generally I agree with the post above. However, higher quality leads will generally be shielded better than cheap ones. Cable cross-talk is a common problem when you have lots of cables close to eachother, and can effect a signal, albeit not much. This applies more to things like Scart leads than digital audio cables but its there for your consideration.

[andrew_mackley]

Errrr... some many choices!
Just had a call to say my new DVD and Amp (Marantz 5200) have been delivered at home so I'm off to set them up and enjoy. The choice of connection will wait a bit - hopefully I'm going to be too busy getting blown away with how better 6.1 is than my rubbishy pro logic at the mo.

Thanks for the advice!:clap:

[DVDWotcha]

I use half a normal analogue audio phono to phono cable. Works fine.

[davey1970]

if you go for the optical and want it cheap then get the ps2 optical cable from argos which was about £6.40 when i bought it at xmas.
cheers
d