Anyone use optical out on their Squeezebox?

[amey01]

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with Optical / Coax out on their Squeezebox.

I've always been using coax, and yes this does sound better than my cheap plastic Optical connector.

BUT.....

I can't help but think that electrically isolating my electrically noisy / dirty Squeezebox from my audio environment might be a good thing.

I could always go out and buy an expensive glass optical cable, but that'd be a very expensive test!

 

[Joey_V]

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with Optical / Coax out on their Squeezebox.

I've always been using coax, and yes this does sound better than my cheap plastic Optical connector.

BUT.....

I can't help but think that electrically isolating my electrically noisy / dirty Squeezebox from my audio environment might be a good thing.

I could always go out and buy an expensive glass optical cable, but that'd be a very expensive test!

Never have experimented.. hmm..

 

[amey01]

Never have experimented.. hmm..

......and what do you use?

 

[Joey_V]

......and what do you use?

Right now I use both, optical to Cary and coax to PSA DAC III.

 

[kcl]

I tried both the optical and coax using good quality cables when I first got my Squeezebox/DAC combo. I recall that there wasn't that big of a difference between the two, but I did prefer the coax over the optical.

 

[Cherian]

Strange?? In theory the optical should be more accurate sound. No data corruption due to EMI RFI. Just my feeling.

 

[Joey_V]

From what I read, the coax is supposed to be better - reasoning behind this may have to do to the conversion to light and reconversion to data? If I recall correctly, that's what I read on the forums before.

I haven't done an a/b between the two methods of connection though.

 

[sleepysurf]

I've used both to my Benchmark DAC. I didn't really appreciate a difference, so I mainly use a high-quality GLASS TOSlink, to minimize RFI and to electrically isolate my audio setup from potential surges via my CAT5 cable. BTW, I bought mine relatively inexpensively from the eBay seller uniqueproductsonline.