Coax to Optical Converters Anygood?

Dg1968, The question that I asked was if anyone has any experience using a converter. I didn't expect another question and a milk toast diatribe on Dac purchasing or system implementation. Have you used a Coax to optical converter? If not then move on!

FWIW I'm considering to buy the DSPeaker Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0. The digital input is optical, hence the need for a converter. It also has line level input, USB input, and can be used as a preamp.. The point in purchasing the Dual Core 2.0 is to simplify my system, and make it easier to move to computer audio in the future. Do a search and read the Dual Core's features. The little unit looks impressive, WOWed them at CES, and I'm sure sounds impressive as well. I'm using the DSPeaker Anti-Mode 8033s on my subs now which happens to help produce the best bass that I have ever had in my 25+ years in this hobby. The Dual Core 2.0 will do DSP corrections to all room nodes up to 500hz, be a dac and preamp as well.
So now you know why I'm considering the need for a coaxial to optical converter.

Rodge-- Milk toast diatribe? Good one. Well at least it was short.

But seriously, and in deference to your 25+ years of experience, without further qualification, your original question frankly made it seem like you didn't have much experience with digital audio. Hence my simple question to you.

Now that we know the unit you are looking at is actually considerably more than just a DAC, things make more sense. The Dual Core 2.0 indeed sounds intriguing, but given its lack of coax input, the company clearly is focusing on computer audio.

Best of luck finding a coax to optical converter to complement your transport.

The Dual Core is designed to work with analog, computer, and digital input.
Here is DSPeaker's reason for using optical rather than coax as taken from the FAQs page:

Q: Coax s/pdif (RCA) sounds better than optical tosink in our ears and due to the listening tests we have done in the past. So why use optical?

A: Our system does not derive its analog to digital converter (DAC) clock from the digital input(s), so jitter in the input is not a problem. Ant jitter in the input gets removed in the process, so there is no difference between the quality of coaxial and optical input in this respect.
The huge advantage of using optical is that there is no ground connection between devices.

Thanks for the encouagement :-). If I can't find a good converter I may stay with my trans/dac combo and use the line level input.

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

Good points, Al. However, perhaps the DAC/unit in question has a sort of asynch function built in. Possibly a Pace Car, if you will, built in?

I don't know the unit, nor have I looked it up. Just theorizing.

If the unit is truly insensitive to jitter, then I'd assume any converter that outs bit perfectly will work.