Even fiber HDMI cables typically have 2 to 4 copper wires, which is why they are still shielded. Pretty sure toslink is no metal outside the connections, which are often plastic also. Noise is hard to pin down sometimes because it depends on your house/apartment wiring, potential ground loops, ECT... In addition to the long run as a tech writer and editor, Jason spent over a decade as a college instructor doing his best to teach a generation of English students that there's more to success than putting your pants on one leg at a time and writing five-paragraph essays. While his days of steering students toward greatness are behind him, his lifelong desire to delight, entertain, and inform lives on in his work at How-To Geek. And, in our experience, compared to optical, a coaxial connection does tend to sound better. That's because it has greater bandwidth available, meaning it can support higher quality audio up to 24-bit/192kHz. Optical is usually restricted to 96kHz.

Also, think of your DAC as the source, not the player (transport) since the DAC is the source of the analog signal. So in this mindset keeping your source in close proximity still applies. The TOSLINK system is still capable of carrying up to 7.1 channels of very high-resolution audio. For the majority of consumer setups, there will be absolutely no discernible difference between audio quality when using an HDMI cable or a TOSLINK cable. spk said:so assuming that the dac is equal in quality i would convert at the receiver. I could be mistaken, but my impression is that analog signals, especially unbalanced, low level signals, are susceptible to noise whereas digital signals, especially optical, are not. So you want to keep your analog signal path as short as possible.If better to use the receiver; I have an optical cable already. I take it from your opinion that there shouldn't really be anything in it between that and a similar quality coaxial cable? (makes sense to me). Pretty much this outside the fact that almost all HDMI cables shorter then 10 to 15ft max are copper. Really, you just need a well shielded cable although it's always a good idea to keep all cable runs as short as possible in my experience.

They could easily update both to support full bandwidth, all formats but it's all about HDCP, which is a shame. Also, maybe Toshiba invented the original digital toslink connected but both are S/PDIF, which was created by Sony and Philips.(see below). so assuming that the dac is equal in quality i would convert at the receiver. I could be mistaken, but my impression is that analog signals, especially unbalanced, low level signals, are susceptible to noise whereas digital signals, especially optical, are not. So you want to keep your analog signal path as short as possible.The majority of TV and AV products launched over the last few years support HDMI version 2.0, but HDMI 2.1 (which supports 8K resolution content and features such as ALLM) is becoming more common among modern TVs and AV kit. Now I think the biggest advantage of coaxial over consumer optical is that coaxial is will work better over distances greater than ten feet, though I could be wrong about that. You'll find HDMI inputs and outputs a firm fixture on the best TVs, Blu-ray players, AV receivers and, increasingly, soundbars. An entry-level cable like the AudioQuest Pearl HDMI will suit a wide range of systems. TOSLINK is just the shortened trade name for Toshiba Link, both named for the company that introduced optical audio as a consumer standard. The answer to this will depend on the kit you’re using. If it’s a straight choice between coaxial and optical, we’d go for the former. In our experience, a coaxial connection tends to produce better audio quality than optical, allowing for a higher level of detail and greater dynamics.