If I took all the bits, added a whole bunch of noise and other digital information and/or clocked them wrong I would have no loss. Just a crappy signal.

We're not concerned with loss here. There is no practical digital informaton loss with the distance and data rates we're talking about.

Mr. Salty...

True... my bad... I remove that comment from my arguement.

No, this is a great arguement. You don't think that a cable which can perform just as good 3ft as it can 3,000 miles is quality? It has to be great quality if it can do that. That arguement says that when the cables are of a great length, there is a measurable difference in loss quality. Now, if you shorten those cables, they still have that quailty, the difference is hard to measure, but the quality is still there. You don't lose Loss Quality because you shorten a cable; that quality is inherent to the cable.

Its all about quality. Just because the cable is shorter doesn't mean you lose the characteristics of that cable. That quote shows that there is a better loss quality associated with optical cable (even if for a long distance). Just because you shorten the cable doesn't mean you lose that quality; it is still there.

You quoted X and then completely disregarded what he said.

There is no practical digital informaton loss with the distance and data rates we're talking about.

It is not all about "quality". What does the "quality" of the cable matter as long as the information gets to the other side? The only issue is jitter, which is in fact better with coaxial cables.

Ok, I give up. But please, I implore you, tell me how you know all this. Please don't just look up new sources, just tell me how you already know what you've stated to be a fact when related to home theater. Is it solely your own listening tests and then assignment to the superiority of optical's quality?

I did not disregard his comment. He said that the distance we are taking about do not relate to the short distance used to connect components. I say it does. The quote says that more data is delivered using optical over long distances. I am saying that if you shorten that long cable (to say 3ft), it will still deliver more data. Just because the cable is shortened doesn't mean it loses its characteristics. I can't stress that enough (except having to type it out 3 times). It doesn't matter if the cable is 3ft or 3000 miles, it will still deliver more data than coaxial.

There is little in common between the long distance fiber optic cables used in telecommunications and the toslink cables used on your dvd player. They are not the same quality, they are not even in the same ballpark....

The long distance fiber is made to work at specific wavelengths to reduce attenutation over long distances and its built to carry huge amounts of data. Those wavelengths and data streams are light years =) beyond your toslink cables.

On a side note something useful did come out of this besides a few chuckles, I found some cheap toslink cables for my playstation2.

http://www.lifatec.com/lifusa_patchcords.htm

-K

=)

More data?

I'm giving up too. But as a death knell:

There is no practical digital informaton loss with the distance and data rates we're talking about.
There is no practical digital informaton loss with the distance and data rates we're talking about.
There is no practical digital informaton loss with the distance and data rates we're talking about.

All cable has a percentage loss, meaning that for any given length of cable, a certain percentage of data will be lost. I have learned this from studying the properties of cables during my study of electricty I have done my own listening test which optical cable sounded better, and I have talked with sound engineers who say optical sounds better. To me, because optical cable's percentage loss is lower than coaxial, it is better. I really don't know what you want me to say here. I have done my research into the matter, and I'm not pulling this out of my butt.

If you used glass toslink as I do, they are very similar in that they use the same medium.

Yes... if you have a coaxial cable and an optical cable both 3000 miles long, that quote says that you will lose more data over the coaxial than the optical when the same amout of data is put through it. If both cables are only 3ft long, it is exactly the same.

Practicality is relative and opinionative. The fact that data is lost still hold true. Now, if you believe that the loss is not practical for you, fine. For me, it is practical.

I didn't want to go too far off topic in the other thread since the problem hasn't been resolved so I posted it back over here since this carries on the great cable debate which will live forever

Just because you spent $10K on a system doesn't mean it is good.

People spend thousands on Bose speakers/systems and any informed person will tell you they are crap! IMHO, speakers from Sony, Technics, Mitsubishi, Yamaha and whatever brand known mainly for electronics are crap also.

I believe the system you are referring to is your fathers correct? If so it is a Mitsubishi system all around correct?

While Mitsubishi makes some nice quality TV's(I know I have of the older 40" tubes they used to sell) they are in no way a quality speaker or audio component manufacturer.

If the Monster made a difference on your system great, but I can verify that on my system, which cost about the same as yours it does not make a bit of difference and with the crappy, overweight connectors actually made it worse.

While not a reference system, heres mine:
Mitsubishi 40" Tube #50403
Acurus Act-3 Pro/pro
Acurus 125x5 amp
Toshiba DVD #2109
Panasonic 5 disc DVD #C-220
Paradigm Monitor 7's front
Paradigm Monitor 5's rear
Paradigm CC-350 center
2 12" passive subs running of a 300 watt/ch Dynaco ST-400 amp


All equipment was tested using speaker wire and cable from Monster, Audioquest, Kimber, Straight Wire and Nordost. And no I didn't do all that double/triple blind crap. If I want results using that I will read the reviews.

To be quick and to the point! In all the tests I had done I have never noticed a difference from using a $10-20 cable and using a $80-100 cable.

I have scrapped most of those cables by now!

I now use Recoton(generic) 12AWG that I got for $2.50 for a 40 foot roll and that included pin connectors. Some here may remember that deal

I have this hooked up to every channel including the subs and the sound is the same as when I had Nordost Flatline running the mains and center and Monster Flatline running the surrounds.

As far as cables go I still use the cheaper Straight Wire stuff and the Kimber PBJ(mainly cause it looks cool). For optical I use a $10 Shack cable. Like I said before quality 75OHM coax, 12AWG oxgen free cable and an optical cable is all you need. The connectors and sheilding are the most important part!

If you want to spend $$$$ and you think it makes a difference go for it, but if you are going to spend the $$$$ anyway get sometng decent like Kimber, Nordost or Bettercables with your money and skip on the Monster junk.

Maybe I am a little biased as I see saying I use Monster cable in my system as embarrassing as saying I use Bose speakers

Anyways...... thats my opinion and my experience, enjoy

You still haven't explained how you know what your cable is made of when you don't even know who made it.

On the package... it could be this one, but I'm not sure...

Glass Optical Cable

I don't remember spending quite that much, but it has been awhile.

"Data integrity is protected by a series of cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) that cause data retransmission until an “error-free” block is transferred. The Reed Solomon encoding used on AC-3 digital audio makes the CRC process look like “kids play”. This coding will detect and correct 1,000 bits of errors in 10,000 bits of data if necessary. A nice clean “1” with sharp edges and a flat top is no different that an extremely dirty “1” with ragged edges and a top that looks like the Rocky Mountains – it’s still a “1”."

This bit about CRCs is from:
http://www.smr-archive.com/forum_6b/messages/421.shtml

Are 'cyclic redundancy checks' a standard item on all digital receivers? Or is this only a new thing?

How can any type of wire on the market lose more data than what can be repaired (or re-sent) by this CRC system?

It's not a new thing. I knew there was reed-solomon on CD's, but I wasn't sure about the digital out so I didn't mention it here. If it's in the standard, every receiver is going to have it.

I suspect you can guess the answer to this.

By cutting the cable in half

I just wanted to add my expert opinion.

Point 1 - You can't compare an audio optical cable with optical cable used for long distance data or telecommunications applications. The transmission protocol used in those applications transmit the data in packets that contain serveral things. Two of which contain the data itself and parity data. In case data is dropped the data can be rebuilt using the parity. Audio in your HT setup is streamed direct...not in packet form. That introduces whats called latency in the signal. Now over a 3 foot cable, latency is not a problem...in fact a 50 foot cable latency is not a problem...but it can be.

Point 2 - Most optical cable now uses plastic or some kind of polymer, not glass. In fact the cable being glass was one of the biggest problems with optical cable in the beginning(and I have been in the field now for 15 years). You could barely make a loop in the cable without breaking the glass inside. Now you can pratically tie a knot in the cable without a problem.

Just thought I would add my 2 cents. I can answer more questions about fiber technology in need be.

Ack... some difficulties in the application of logic here.

You can't compare long distance with short distance use. Otherwise, using the same logic, IR would be a very low quality for a 10 foot remote, since studies would show at one mile it would perform very poorly.

To state that optical is "better" quality for the sound, means you are saying that the standard digital cable drops data bits in the digital stream. Is this your claim?

I think you all missed the boat on this one!

It is well known in the "Audiophile" community that analog is where it is at.

Analog sound quality is far superior to digital!

How do I know this you may ask?

It's irrelevant to this discussion. The audio tracks on a DVD are digital and must be decoded somewhere along the line. Most people choose to do that in a receiver or preamp/processor. To do that, you have to get the digital bitstream where it needs to go.

OK you ruined it, I was just being sarcastic and enjoying my beer that is why I kinda left it unanswered!

I will move on now

Given that I am not a Home Theater "expert", but I am the network engineer/aministrator for a large corporate that utilizes both optical and coaxial as well as twisted pair cables I might have something to add:

There are no fundamental differences in optical or coaxial cabling when you are dealing with digital information. Epecially at distances of 3-6ft. On our network we have a 1.5km optical cable running at 1Gbs and we know for a fact that our medium(optical cable) loss rate is less than .0000001% of all of our traffic. The cable itself is not shielded except for the foil surrounding it. There is the problem with the connection because they have to be polished each time you unplug it and plug it back in, other wise you will recieve errors. Coaxial cable is easier to connect, and is just a reliable as optical cable up to 1000ft. further than that if you don't have active repeaters you will have trouble.

The point is at 3-6ft. there will not be any loss of information. CRC checks and other ECC can rebuild a loss of 1-3 bits per byte of information perfectly.

The people who think that there is a difference in the cables are the same type of people who used a green marker on their CD's because they thought it would make them sound better.

Digital information is digital information. 1's and 0's will not change into 2's and 3's.

Of course I don't think I am going to change anyone's mind, people tend to stick by their ways.

Ozy