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[tamasdragon]

One of my engineer friend told me that he bought a very expensive optical cable, which is at least twice as thick as the simple ones (for example supplied with rme cards and other devices. He told me that it's sounds much better than the thin ones.
Please give some technical guidelines why is it possible or impossible?
I haven't tested yet, but I'm very sceptical in this.
Regards Tamas Dragon

[Barry Hufker]

I am certainly no expert on this.  To my mind, the difference between a cheap quality optical cable and a high quality one is transmission loss.  Glass cable, such as the kind used by AT&T, has a much lower transmission loss.  In any event, as long as the data gets to the other end well enough to be read as "1" and "0", I can't imagine it makes much difference.  I certainly don't believe there would be an audible difference.  An audible difference would occur if the data were so severely corrupted in transmission that error correction had to seriously work to make up for the lost or damaged data, in which caes one should through that cable out.

Barry

[Ronny]

tamasdragon wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 06:24

One of my engineer friend told me that he bought a very expensive optical cable, which is at least twice as thick as the simple ones (for example supplied with rme cards and other devices. He told me that it's sounds much better than the thin ones. Please give some technical guidelines why is it possible or impossible? I haven't tested yet, but I'm very sceptical in this. Regards Tamas Dragon

Your friend is either not testing scientifically, he's exceeding the recommended cable length requirements or he's listening to the typical bullshit and power of suggestion put out by manufacturers. I'll bet he says that gold connectors sound better than stainless, too. I use 1mm, 2mm and 5mm optical cables and there is absolutely no audible differences. While it's true that glass is more pure than plastic, the only benefit is that it will transmit digital data farther. Light is light, ones are ones and zeros are zeros.

When are some of these folks going to stop relying 100% on their ears and back up their "opinions" with scientific testing? Higher prices do not make for better sounding cables. The biggest malfunction in cable evaluations is the human ear. I guarantee it.

[ammitsboel]

Ronny wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 16:47

When are some of these folks going to stop relying 100% on their ears and back up their "opinions" with scientific testing? Higher prices do not make for better sounding cables. The biggest malfunction in cable evaluations is the human ear. I guarantee it.

I think the reason why you don't understand this is because you either haven't been able to hear it, or you're simply denying it.
I'll bet almost all our girlfriends can hear the difference when testing cables!

[bobkatz]

tamasdragon wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 06:24

One of my engineer friend told me that he bought a very expensive optical cable, which is at least twice as thick as the simple ones (for example supplied with rme cards and other devices. He told me that it's sounds much better than the thin ones. Please give some technical guidelines why is it possible or impossible? I haven't tested yet, but I'm very sceptical in this. Regards Tamas Dragon

Blame it on his DAC! Optical interfaces are fairly low bandwidth and thus more susceptible to causing interface jitter. But the DAC is supposed to reject that.

Tell him to use THE SAME DAC, and capture a file through each optical cable to a DAW, line them up in sync and switch between them. You will hear no differences. Also null the data. It will be identical. But feed them to a susceptible DAC and you'll hear differences.

[Ronny]

ammitsboel wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 12:04

Ronny wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 16:47 When are some of these folks going to stop relying 100% on their ears and back up their "opinions" with scientific testing? Higher prices do not make for better sounding cables. The biggest malfunction in cable evaluations is the human ear. I guarantee it. I think the reason why you don't understand this is because you either haven't been able to hear it, or you're simply denying it. I'll bet almost all our girlfriends can hear the difference when testing cables!

Think so? How much scientific testing have you done on optical cables? What test parameters did you use and what analytical gear did you use to confirm what your ears hear?

Read the last two sentences in my last post, I didn't mention names, but you've commented negatively and now I can say that you are one of the main people that I'm referring to. I have nothing against you personally, but your claims are too often based on opinion and not science. My tests do not corroborate your claims and it's not because my test procedures are lacking, it's simply because you trust your ears solely to make evaluations and you don't delve into physical reality of constuction properties, or you just pass on the power of suggestion bullcrap that cable manufacturers use to charge higher prices.

[Barry Hufker]

"I'll bet almost all our girlfriends can hear the difference when testing cables!"


Oddly enough my girlfriend *can* hear the difference, but my wife can't! ;>)

Barry