Coax vs. Toslink

good stuff - i'm always interested in people's set ups.

perhaps more of a function of the comcast box, unfortunately, but, like you say, who knows...

sometimes you just can't figure out why things sound the way they do.

i have comcast as well and had to switch to an optical cable on one of my tvs because of a ground loop and it took a while to even find an optical cable that came close to sounding as good as my rca cable(s) on that system.

Got a nice 2-meter optical cable from Atlona; they also make decently-priced coaxial cables - They're out of San Jose (Support local industry).

I think that going through the optical link from the cable box dodges the built-in Comcast HD/Dolby decoder in the box, which allows my preamp(Anthem 30)to apply its own Dolby PL-IIx. TV sound is acceptable (Not my area of interest - Annoying ads are the same in any decoding). In any event, the two classical stations on Comcast are quite tolerable.

Cheers,
Jon

The reason why the optical output sounds better than the coax on your cable box is most likely that it isn't an electrical connection. Without an electrical connection, it can't transmit it's own electronic noise to the rest of the system. Ground differences between them are also eliminated.

Too many people say coax always sounds better than optical. They probably haven't tried a good glass optical cable and/or the source they were using didn't transmit much electrical grunge.

A good glass cable doesn't have to cost much. I use a Sonicwave glass optical cable from Amazon that I paid $25 for. Sounds excellent.

Cable boxes have a different earth ground than the AC outlets. This is why I use a Jensen isolation transformer on the RF cable before it enters the cable box. Once I did this, the coax sounded better, but its a really good coax.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Audioengr wrote:
Cable boxes have a different earth ground than the AC outlets. This is why I use a Jensen isolation transformer on the RF cable before it enters the cable box.

But it doesn't have to be a different earth. It took 5-6 visits from cable techs before I could convince one to actually MOVE the cable ground next to the main house ground. It took him less than 5 minutes and it is a permanent cure, not a band-aid.

Kal