Yo Scot, The difference between Toslink and coax is far more apparent on CD audio than on Dolby Digital because the stucture of the digital signal is more of a steady data stream than a series of 16 bit words as it is in CD audio. So the type of cable (toslink vs. coax) and the quality of the cable is far less critical with Dolby Digital than with a CD player & D/A converter. Home Theater Magazine did a "cable shoot-out" a couple of years ago and came to that conclusion. I've done some cable switching on my DVD player and using Audioquest's best $220/meter Digital/Video/RF Pro coax vs. toslink and cheaper coax, I couldn't hear a difference that would convince me to spend the bucks for the Pro. I do use the Pro on my Pioneer Elite CLD-97 laserdisk player where it makes a big difference.
Newbie to HT - Optical vs Digital Coax
I'm new to digital HT and just purchased a DD pre/proc and a DVD player. The player has optical outputs but not digital coax. Is it fine to go ahead and use the optical outputs, or should I take the player back and buy one that has digital coax outputs as well. I'm not spending a lot on a player, thus why I probably ended up with one without digital outs. Is there a sound difference between the two? Thanks