Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: Toslink newbie

Posted by flood2 (A) on May 12, 2025 at 13:54:33

In Reply to: Toslink newbie posted by psgary on May 12, 2025 at 11:08:02:

In the early days, TOSLINK was generally considered as inferior due to the typically higher jitter level due to the limitations of the transmitter and receiver limiting the maximum data rate due to the lower slew rate (longer rise time essentially). The other problem was the connector housing and the often poor alignment of the fibre to the transducer - alignment is critical for optimum signal transfer. 24/96 was the rated upper limit and often unreliable with low quality optical cable with poor quality fibre.
These days, you can easily achieve 24/192 and the digital interface receivers make the DAC essentially immune to input jitter so the optical connection is indistinguishable with high quality sources and DACs.
The big advantage of TOSLINK is the elimination of coupled noise between the source and DAC which is why your friend is recommending it to you. Back in the day I used to use an Apogee Big Ben to reclock the source data with AES/XLR connections to my DAC, but these days a direct optical connection to the DAC is indistinguishable in quality so I use them very happily these days and they avoid grounding problems particularly with multiple connections to the DAC.

Look for a cable with high quality connectors - cheap ones have poorly toleranced connectors that can be a little loose in the TOSLINK socket. Make sure to get the length you need and avoid tight bends - you want to have a natural curve to the fibre and not allow the connectors to be stressed in the socket.


Regards Anthony

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats

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