I was reorganizing my system and found my RCA digital cable was too short for the new arrangement. I used a Toslink cable to tide me over and found the sound was better than the RCA. Have since purchased a Wireworld multi-filament glass fiber Toslink and am quite happy!
Which connection: RCA, XLR, COAX, OPTICAL?
Hi again good people on Audiogon, I have little experience with this, so would you be so kind to give me some advice? I did read about it around the web, but opinions are somewhat contradicting and confusing, at least to me. I’m in a process of changing most of my system. I have no possibilities to try-out different cables.
I need to decide how to connect a CD player and a Blu-ray player to integrated amp (with built-in DAC) and to head-amp (with built-in DAC).
I expect (probably) to have these options:
- amplifier (with DAC) inputs: 1 XLR, 2 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- head-amp (with DAC) inputs: 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- CD player outputs: 1 XLR, 1 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- Blu-ray player outputs: 1 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink.
All cables will be between 0.4 and 1 meter, always as short as possible.
Regarding the quality of DACs in these 4 devices, it’s much more probable that DACs in amplifiers will be better than DAC in CD player, but let’s also consider the opposite case too, where the DAC from CD player is of equal or better quality. (DAC of Blu-ray player will be of lower quality for sure.)
Which type of connection would you recommend for each one of these 4 connections (CD-amp, CD-headamp, BLU-amp, BLU-headamp)?
Would your recommendations differ for CD player, based on the quality of its internal DAC, its inferiority or superiority to the amp’s built-in DAC?
THANK YOU SO MUCH :)
I need to decide how to connect a CD player and a Blu-ray player to integrated amp (with built-in DAC) and to head-amp (with built-in DAC).
I expect (probably) to have these options:
- amplifier (with DAC) inputs: 1 XLR, 2 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- head-amp (with DAC) inputs: 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- CD player outputs: 1 XLR, 1 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink;
- Blu-ray player outputs: 1 analog RCA, 1 coaxial, 1 optical toslink.
All cables will be between 0.4 and 1 meter, always as short as possible.
Regarding the quality of DACs in these 4 devices, it’s much more probable that DACs in amplifiers will be better than DAC in CD player, but let’s also consider the opposite case too, where the DAC from CD player is of equal or better quality. (DAC of Blu-ray player will be of lower quality for sure.)
Which type of connection would you recommend for each one of these 4 connections (CD-amp, CD-headamp, BLU-amp, BLU-headamp)?
Would your recommendations differ for CD player, based on the quality of its internal DAC, its inferiority or superiority to the amp’s built-in DAC?
THANK YOU SO MUCH :)