Coax to Optical Converters Anygood?

If in fact the unit's DAC function is insensitive to jitter on the incoming signal, then it should also have minimal, if any, sensitivity to the quality of the converter (assuming the converter is at least good enough to function reliably).

On the other hand, this comment by Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio, in this thread, would seem to be relevant:

It's strictly marketing that says that all jitter is eliminated. Never happens. I have yet to find a DAC that is not improved by a low-jitter source.

So the bottom line would seem to be that the DAC will have considerably less sensitivity to converter quality than DACs that don't use comparable asynchronous technology, but exactly how much sensitivity would remain is speculative.

Regards,
-- Al

Yes, Kbark, based on the claimed insensitivity to jitter I'd assume that the D/A conversion process is performed by this unit asynchronously to the clock on the incoming signal. Which will greatly reduce the importance of the quality of the converter. However, respecting Steve's experience in these matters, I would not necessarily conclude that the resulting sonics will be COMPLETELY insensitive to jitter on the incoming signal.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there could be some subtle effects that occur in the circuitry, or that are inherent in the processing algorithms, that would result in a theoretically complete insensitivity to jitter being less than perfect.

In any event, I think we're both agreed that the choice of a converter is less critical than what the OP appears to have been envisioning. And that reports of experiences with particular converters need to be considered in the context of the jitter rejection capability, if any, of the particular DAC that was being used.

Regards,
-- Al

I wasn't all that concerned with jitter as such, more with the quality of the signal not being compromised. Understanding that the more in the signal path the better the possibility for the signal quality to go awry.

Assuming that bit errors do not occur, and I would expect that they would not occur with any decent converter, the only way I can envision that signal quality could be degraded (that would have sonic consequences) would be via the introduction of jitter. My comments were based on that assumption, which I believe is correct.

In any event, good luck with the upgrade, however you decide to proceed.

Regards,
-- Al