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RE: Toslink Digital Cables

I've had a number of different optical cables and, considering ordinary plastic fiber that represents 99% of all cables in the market, there seems to be little or no difference between plastic optical cables. I've tried Philips, Monoprice, Audioquest, and others.

The better of the plastic cables have slightly improved connectors perhaps. (One Monoprice cable actually failed by means of the plastic optical fiber extruding from the connector metal jacket - but it had lead a bit of a hard life...)

I am using a Lifatech optical cable now from my CD transport to my DAC. Modest pieces of gear each, yes, but a clearly discernible improvement came from the Lifatech. The degree of difference is much like other cable upgrades, subtle, but there is just more music there. Lifatech is true glass-fiber design and their optical fiber is made for critical medical and industrial applications. It employs many hundreds of strands compared to some audiophile glass units and it's beautifully made. The folks at the company are quite helpful in their correspondence also, I note. An excellent value for, as you say, a few more pounds. I've posted a review on AA.

It is my surmise that the overall limit of performance obtainable from TOSLINK is majority dependent on the quality of the optical transmitter and receiver in the connected units. Many consumer devices use the same crap 79-cent optical transmitter and the resulting sound will probably always be crap. Even well-made devices have a seemingly wide range of interaction with a certain cable. My experience is that a fortuitous combination can sound excellent, however.

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