Gut check for all the recent digital filtering chatter

invalid

Toslink isn't very good, but optical would be the ultimate if we had a better interface for it.

treitz3

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

rebelsoul

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

invalid

treitz3 wrote: »

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

The problem isn't optical it's the toslink interface that's the problem.

jbreezy5

invalid wrote: »

Toslink isn't very good, but optical would be the ultimate if we had a better interface for it.

treitz3 wrote: »

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

rebelsoul wrote: »

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

invalid wrote: »

treitz3 wrote: »

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

The problem isn't optical it's the toslink interface that's the problem.

^^^ See what I mean^^^

jbreezy5

The real issue is I wonder how many of us could tell appreciable differences, to the point of being able to accurately identify a specific piece of equipment (i.e. be it cables of any kind, dacs, disc spinners, pres, amps, you name it) in double-blind testing.

I mean, if we truly trust our ears, our experiences, our familiarity with our own equipment, then we shouldn’t need to see it in order to consistently and accurately identify when it is either added or subtracted from a system.

Acoustics can fool just about anyone.

Ever experienced the sense that a sound came from one room in your house only to discover that it originated from a completely different one?

Ever played Marco Polo at the swimming pool and used your hand to redirect your vocals to successfully mislead your blind followers?

Just a couple simple examples.

There really is no reason for anyone to act like an expert, including (especially?) experts, in a hobby so heavy-laden with such broad subjective experiences. Even the things that have been objectively proven don’t /can’t tell the whole story.

True experts appreciate the limits of their own understanding, and hopefully, that drives them to keep learning - humility comes with knowledge.

“…the more I know, the less I understand. The things I thought I’d figured out, I have to learn again.”

- Don Henley (Heart of the Matter) -

msg

.

rebelsoul wrote: »

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

Hwat?
Jitter wrecked your post. Your phase noise oscillator is failing.

bcwsrt

"This song's got a broken hook
I can order you a new one from Nashville but it won't be cheap
And I know you've been using a cut-rate thesaurus
'Cause your adverbs have backed up into your chorus
Now your verse is runnin' on verbs that are way too weak."

- Alan Jackson (“The Talkin’ Song Repair Blues”)

What’s this thread about again?

stevep

invalid wrote: »

treitz3 wrote: »

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

The problem isn't optical it's the toslink interface that's the problem.

You mean S/PDIF? Since Toslink is S/PDIF over Digital Optical cable instead of a digital coax cable. As a transfer protocol S/PDIF leaves a lot to be desired but it's cheap and works mostly.

rebelsoul

msg wrote: »

.

rebelsoul wrote: »

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

Hwat?
Jitter wrecked your post. Your phase noise oscillator is failing.

Moved the ifi Ethernet filter from the dac to the switch. It made such a difference. My wife even noticed a difference.

mhardy6647

rebelsoul wrote: »

msg wrote: »

.

rebelsoul wrote: »

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

Hwat?
Jitter wrecked your post. Your phase noise oscillator is failing.

Moved the ifi Ethernet filter from the dac to the switch. It made such a difference. My wife even noticed a difference.

[emphasis added]

... from the kitchen.

That's the acid test of a successful audiophile tweak!

jdjohn

stevep wrote: »

invalid wrote: »

treitz3 wrote: »

Aren't they the same thing? (Both optical)

Tom

The problem isn't optical it's the toslink interface that's the problem.

You mean S/PDIF? Since Toslink is S/PDIF over Digital Optical cable instead of a digital coax cable. As a transfer protocol S/PDIF leaves a lot to be desired but it's cheap and works mostly.

My understanding is that SPDIF is the 'software' used for both TOSLINK and digital coax, but of course the cables themselves and the connectors are different - fiber optic (light pulses) vs copper (electrical pulses). I think the primary limitation of SPDIF is only being able to handle two channels of UNcompressed audio.

FWIW, TOSLINK was developed by Toshiba - TOShibaLINK.

mhardy6647

S/PDIF = Sony/Philips Digital Interface -- it's a serial interface standard; one that S & P established for the CD way back when.

https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/spdif

invalid

The fiber optic cable should be able to handle more data than copper. Toslink was originally designed to carry 48khz, there are some toslink interfaces that can carry up to 24/192 but that is at its limit, the toslink receivers are bandwidth limited even more so than SPDIF over coax.

msg

OHHHHHHHH! I got it now, lol
Well, cool!

rebelsoul wrote: »

msg wrote: »

.

rebelsoul wrote: »

Switched the ifi Ethernet silent Ethernet filter from dac to input on the lhy sw- 8 switch and omg the separation, and decay . Sitting back and enjoying. Seen me wife getting in the music .

Hwat?
Jitter wrecked your post. Your phase noise oscillator is failing.

Moved the ifi Ethernet filter from the dac to the switch. It made such a difference. My wife even noticed a difference.

msg

ooh, this was interesting. My processor, Parasound's Halo C2, doesn't offer HDMI, so I have TOSLINK out from my TV in to the C2.

I don't really care, since my preferences are for music-first everywhere, and that's a combo use system, but I did *not* realize that the surround audio is compressed. I knew it was limited to 5.1 and to particular codecs, though. It does offer 7.2ch BNC inputs, which had me shopping in the old days for a BDP that offered 7.2 outs, like OPPO.

One day I'll likely have to get a new processor, and maybe I'll step up to HMID, or whatever it is that the kids are using these days.

Regarding digital coax vs optical - it's been a while, and I'd really have to sit down for a comparison, but I've never been able to tell the difference at my systems' level. Maybe I could now, but doubt it given my streaming sources.

(sorry Jodaaay, getting off track)

S/PDIF is based on the AES3 interconnect standard.[3] S/PDIF can carry two channels of uncompressed PCM audio or compressed 5.1 surround sound (such as DTS audio codec or Dolby Digital codec); it cannot support lossless surround formats that require greater bandwidth.[4]

Clipdat

Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to quote and reply to messages on a forum? What the **** is wrong with you, son?

treitz3

Clipdat wrote:

What referring too? irregardless, I know exactly how to quote people and respond!

Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to quote and reply to messages on a forum? What the **** is wrong with you, son?



Tom

jdjohn

Drew, son, he was quoting an external source, not a previous post. However, he did leave a couple of dangling footnote references, [3],[4], so he does get demerits for that

treitz3

jbreezy5 wrote: »

The real issue is I wonder how many of us could tell appreciable differences, to the point of being able to accurately identify a specific piece of equipment (i.e. be it cables of any kind, dacs, disc spinners, pres, amps, you name it) in double-blind testing.

Unfortunately, very few.

On a different note I am still a little confused about TOSLINK versus optical. It was mentioned that the interface is different but at the end of the day, it's still optical. The connectors are the same, so are we talking about different soft/hardware to read the light or what?

I've never ran optical, so I know nothing about it. Just curious, as it seems many folks across the country are getting the option to run optical.

Tom

heiney9

Some say there is a difference between glass toslink and plastic toslink. I haven't done a whole lot of research but I had always heard it was easier to get good sound from coax than toslink. This was before USB became popular so maybe my info is a bit outdated...lol.

I use a glass toslink from my TV to my dac so I can run TV audio on the main rig when necessary. It actually works well.

H9

invalid

treitz3 wrote: »

jbreezy5 wrote: »

The real issue is I wonder how many of us could tell appreciable differences, to the point of being able to accurately identify a specific piece of equipment (i.e. be it cables of any kind, dacs, disc spinners, pres, amps, you name it) in double-blind testing.

Unfortunately, very few.

On a different note I am still a little confused about TOSLINK versus optical. It was mentioned that the interface is different but at the end of the day, it's still optical. The connectors are the same, so are we talking about different soft/hardware to read the light or what?

I've never ran optical, so I know nothing about it. Just curious, as it seems many folks across the country are getting the option to run optical.

Tom

It's the transceivers in toslink that make it not so good, AT&T made one called ST that was much better.

msg

I thought they were the same thing, but it seems this is another set of terminology we've grown accustomed to slinging around haphazardly.

Apparently, TOSLINK is the connector.
S/PDIF is the protocol (optical and digital coax, typically TOSLINK and RCA termination, respectively)
Optical just means fiber optical cable.

heiney9

A toslink cable is optical and I believe it uses a mirror to reflect the light along the "glass". But, I honestly haven't researched this stuff in years.

H9

jbreezy5

treitz3 wrote: »

jbreezy5 wrote: »

The real issue is I wonder how many of us could tell appreciable differences, to the point of being able to accurately identify a specific piece of equipment (i.e. be it cables of any kind, dacs, disc spinners, pres, amps, you name it) in double-blind testing.

Unfortunately, very few.

On a different note I am still a little confused about TOSLINK versus optical. It was mentioned that the interface is different but at the end of the day, it's still optical. The connectors are the same, so are we talking about different soft/hardware to read the light or what?

I've never ran optical, so I know nothing about it. Just curious, as it seems many folks across the country are getting the option to run optical.

Tom

What’s unfortunate about it?

Sound reproduction is so good nowadays that even persons with low budgets have the ability to attain remarkable fidelity.

Diminishing returns begin a lot sooner than they used to in many respects.

In other words, it should be harder to distinguish between gear of similar design and specification these days.

stevep

A few topics germane to this and several other thread on this forum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_buffer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment

jdjohn

I wonder if folks are confusing 'TOSLINK optical' with 'fiber optical'. TOSLINK cable has a single core with a 'common standard diameter' of 1.0mm. I would hardly call 1mm a 'fiber'. Fiber optical cable (like for networking) can have a 100 or more 'pairs' of glass fibers measuring fractions of a millimeter in diameter, all bundled together.

I found a reference for TOSLINK that says it is a single transmitter, with a max rate of 125Mb/S, that can go 10meters. This limit may be a result of the S/PDIF interface. The reference mentions these are normally plastic fibers with a high attenuation.

Fiber optic cable utilizes a DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system that can (obviously) handle a LOT more throughput...I'll leave it at that.

In the end, I think HDMI and USB became the favored choices for audio and video transmission, especially over longer runs, and when multiple channels are involved.

2-channel audio got left in the dust to fend for itself.

msg

I thought I remembered reading a member talking once about real glass toslink cable? Could have been short for fiberglass.

This is interesting from DH Labs... I like optical. I use it on a couple of SBTs, and coax on others. Now I'm curious.
https://silversonic.com/products/digital-cables/glass-master-toslink/

Our Glass Master Toslink is the finest optical cable available at any price. Offering 300 strands of proprietary glass fibers, Glass Master Toslink delivers the widest bandwidth & frequency response in the industry. Glass fiber optical cable is the highest quality digital optical cable medium available, with a significantly higher acceptance angle than standard plastic fiber. To transmit light with the precision of this cable, the fibers must contain glass of the highest purity. The process of making glass with this level of perfection is very demanding, requiring careful control over the materials and processes involved.

heiney9

msg wrote: »

I thought I remembered reading a member talking once about real glass toslink cable? Could have been short for fiberglass.

This is interesting from DH Labs... I like optical. I use it on a couple of SBTs, and coax on others. Now I'm curious.
https://silversonic.com/products/digital-cables/glass-master-toslink/

Our Glass Master Toslink is the finest optical cable available at any price. Offering 300 strands of proprietary glass fibers, Glass Master Toslink delivers the widest bandwidth & frequency response in the industry. Glass fiber optical cable is the highest quality digital optical cable medium available, with a significantly higher acceptance angle than standard plastic fiber. To transmit light with the precision of this cable, the fibers must contain glass of the highest purity. The process of making glass with this level of perfection is very demanding, requiring careful control over the materials and processes involved.

No, it's glass. I remember researching the topic years ago. Glass was considered the better "conduit" for Toslink cable transmission. Again, this was years ago when I was deciding between coax and toslink before USB.

Toslink is optical, but different than the fiber optic networks for computer systems, etc.

H9

msg

Makes sense on the glass. I just remembered he also said he had to be mindful of the bend radius.