2. digital
  3. 1322794483

DAC newbie: toslink vs. coax and more...

Hi, Gang,

Just took the plunge on a Musical Fidelity M1DAC... the reviews have been great and Needle Doctor was running a closeout sale that I couldn't resist. ;-) I also picked up a Musical Fidelity V-Link SPDIF to USB thingie in case I decide to get into hi-res music files via my MacBook Pro.

My primary use for the DAC will be to bypass the innards of my Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player and hopefully upgrade the sound quality.

Question: My impression is that coaxial is the preferred link from CD to DAC (as opposed to toslink). Do I have that right?

Also, looking on the Audio Advisor web site, I see (no surprise here) that "digital coax cables" range from cheap to crazy-expensive. Any thoughts on what's sane and cost-effective in the "coax cable" department? And is there any difference between "coax" cable and a standard RCA interconnect?

Thanks for your help and patience!
rebbi

Showing 1 response by audioengr

audioengr
3,282 posts
 
The performance results with toslink and coax depends a lot on the quality of the cable, and whether you have ground-loops in your system. Obviously, if you have ground loops, the toslink will help with this.

If you use a very good 1.5m S/PDIF coax cable, such as the Ridge Street Audio Poiema, then there is no toslink that can compete with it.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
More to discover