I was recently placed on an optical cable design team at work. It didn't take long for a digital audio (optical cable) to make an appearance in the boxes of cables & connectors sitting around the office. I've always been skeptical about cables making much of a difference in audio quality but I decided to give it a shot.
Most people that know even the basics about anything audio related (or electricity) know that you can't use 42 AWG speaker cable to drive your Klipsch tower speakers at full volume. The wire has too much resistance, too much signal is attenuated, and you risk overheating and damaging your amp. To the other extreme, the whole Monster Cable craze is a pile of crap. I've read numerous A/B (MC versus a generic 12 AWG speaker cable) test results where even if an expert listener could tell a difference between the cables, they couldn't tell which was better. Basically, there's no point in wasting your money on expensive pieces of wire. One of the funnier once that I've read: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good As Monster Cables. I know I'm addressing speaker cables here, but the same rules apply to other audio cables.
Essentially because the cable was free, I decided to give the cable a shot. The cable is a generic plastic fiber cable. Because it was in the lab without caps over the connectors, the interface was fairly roughed up. The cable was cleaned under a microscope to ensure there's no dirt on it (which could damage your equipment). Overall, the cable I'm using seems to be very low cost (I would guess on the order of like $2 - Amazon), and it even has a slight bit of damage.
Other equipment includes an LG BD570 Blu-Ray player, Sony STR-DE475 amplifier, and Bose 701 tower speakers (I know, I know...I'll address that little fiasco in a later post). Speakers are wired with 12AWG cable and towed out about 12 degrees. I hooked the cable up such that I only had to press one button on my receiver to "switch cables". My listening couch is about 6 feet from the system. And I'm in a room with a lot of open space, 14 ft ceilings, hard wood floors, and a large canvas painting over the couch. I'm playing a Sovereign Grace Sampler CD.
I noticed a difference almost immediately. The cable brings a whole new level of definition to the audio. The RCA cable sounds a slight bit muddy when compared to the optical cable. The audio sounds a bit more balanced. It music has a slightly greater presence. I pulled out my RTA and (note that this is nothing formal at all...just a quick check) it looks as though a few frequencies stick out a little more using the digital cable than the RCA...this could be why the audio seems to have more definition. I'm going to need to pull out a signal generator to confirm this. Overall, the music sounds much more lively and dynamic. I think I'm hooked and will have to buy one of these cables for myself.
Anyway, if you have even a semi-decent stereo setup, even a cheap optical cable is a great way to hook it all up. In addition to sounding a little better, you can hook up all channels of your system with just one tiny cable (an actually save a good bit of money over those Monster "just as good as coat hanger" Cables).
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