Toslink/optical cable recommendations

Kijanki, agreed on all counts, aside from the last sentence :-)

I would add, with respect to the mention of "a little of black magic in this hobby and placebo effect," that there are probably also many cases in which effects are correctly perceived but are not attributed to the correct variable.  With the correct variable often being unrecognized due to some combination of inadequately thorough methodology in the evaluation, and/or technical misconception.  That said, though, as I'm sure you'll agree a substantial body of anecdotal evidence, taken with a modest quantity of grains of salt, can often provide significant value.

Best regards,
-- Al
 

I ve been using glass fiber Lifatec for about 5 years as well as german JIB glass , and sys concept plastic from Canada... They are all quality cables, as I ve compared them to the Cardas clear , Goldmund Lineal, and Ensemble coaxial cables in my very revealing system... Of course each cable is system dependent and it takes some time to tell the differences....

+3 with Kijanki and ghosthouse. I use this low cost glass fiber cable in preference to Audioquest Cinnamon cable with synthetic fibers which retails for ~$80 for 1.5m.  AQ cable doesn't sound bad, but Glass cable sounds a bit faster with better attack and longer decays. A bit more like music to me.

Thanks Kijanki too. I was looking for something to connect my cable/TV to my system and saw your post. I needed 12' and for $35 shipped it's a bargain. No possibility of ground loops. Seems to work great but I have nothing to compare it to.

xti16, you're welcome.  Cutting ground loops is great but Toslink sometimes is worse than coax.  It is a system thing.  What works for somebody might not work for you.  Optical drivers have slow slew rate (transition time) making transition recognition moment susceptible to internal system noise (producing jitter), but at the same time Toslink is free from transmission line effects, from electromagnetic or capacitive coupling of electrical noise and from ground loops.  Clean power supply (conditioner) could be beneficial  with Toslink.