2. digital
  3. 958161605

Coax or Toslink, Which is better?

I'm thinking of purchasing a cd player but it only has a Toslink digital out. I'd prefer a coax since I have a Stealth digital coax I just purchased. Is there a big difference in audio quality and signal stability between the two? I have a Marantz cd recorder with Optical and coax digital ins. Sorry if this has been asked before?? Thanks Joe Lienhard [email protected]
joelien
limomangus's avatar
limomangus
1,188 posts
 
Coax cable .
Ag insider logo xs@2x
jazzman7
334 posts
 
All things being equal, in most cases would vote for coax.
However, it very much varies from use case to use case, the vagaries of the particular components together with the quality of the particular cable employed. 
motokokusanagi
189 posts
 
Coax is generally better for listening (e.g. connection from CDP to DAC to amp to speakers/headphones), but if your plan is to connect the CDP to the Marantz for purposes of recording CDs (????), then optical shouldn't be any worse if the bitstream is identical. Why buy a CDP with optical out only in the first place? 
More to discover