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Is there a difference in sound between a coax cable and an optical one?

I've had 2 separate DACS within the past 20 years, both using a coax cable.  I've had trouble with both with the connections.  They either come loose or disconnect or whatever.  I've always had to go and wiggle the cable to get the sound to come out again.  The older one was an Audioquest cable (long gone) and the one I'm using now is an MIT (probably 12-15 years old).   My plans are to get a new pre-amp with a built-in DAC and if there is no substantial difference in sound, I plan on using an optical cable this time around.   Any thoughts?
shtinkydog
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Try signal to noise ratio. 
stray_cat
69 posts
 
There are soooo many variables. Coax output, cable, and input implementation etc. Same with optical variables. Do experiment with what you can and use what sounds best to you.

In my own rig after trying 3 coax (silnote, HF Reveal & Acoustic Revive DSIX active) and 2 optical cables (both plastic & glass), on both types both with and without an ifi spdif ipurifier, coax bested optical for both music and video. Since my DAC uses no muting, using the ifi caused a loud zap every time I switched sources (node2) so I left it off. The active AR coax cable sounds most musical and real to me on everything. Good luck!
antigrunge2
1,441 posts
 
Just to add to stray-cat‘s comment: AR DSIX is fantastic and can be further improved by adding a LPS such as Kingrex. I kid you not, even the power cable feeding the Kingrex makes a difference
turnbowm
353 posts
 
In theory, the coax should be better due to higher bandwidth and less jitter. In my case, the optical sounded better/smoother. An unfair contest, however, as I was using Lifatec glass optical and cheap BJC coax. If better coax comes my way, I may repeat the comparison but I'm in no rush. 
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