Mark Lanctot Wrote: > > Could it be that: > > 1. The DVD player introduced more errors than just the minor ones EAC > corrected? > > 2. The DVD player has a worse S/PDIF interface than the SB does? > > 3. The receiver's optical S/PDIF decoder is better than its coaxial > one? > > 4. The SB's jitter is lower? This is almost surely true, but does > jitter really make that much of a difference? When I hear arguments > about more jitter/less jitter I always thought these were the golden > ears who were debating the audio equivalent of how many angels they > could fit on the head of a pin. ;-) > > 5. It's not a proper double-blind test, my mind is playing tricks with > my ears. >
Could be all of these. On a good CD, and decent transport #1 less likely so. So quite likely 2,3,4 and 5. The problem with the coax vs optical debate is that almost every setup will be different. It'll be a combination of the spdif implementation, the transmitter, cable and receiver. I've seen lots of coax vs optical debates - the thing is both sides were probably right given the equipment they were using. Historically, optical implementations weren't that great - the spec is fairly dated. The technology has only really caught up to the commodity market relatively recently. In particular, optical interconnects (the lenses and the cables) were generally quite bad. Audiophile ones available now are much, much better (double the bandwidth from reports I've read). This is one of the primary reasons why "coax is better" persists today. (I use coax btw). Theoretically, optical is immune to noise. That said, the receivers are particularly sensitive to noise (emi and thermal) - especially older implementations. Additionally, bad cables (re: cheap ones) have high attenuation, react badly when bent, etc. So if the optical implementation is done on the cheap you could easily lose the benefit of your optical interconnect... If you put that up against a good coax cable in a relatively noise-free environment the coax is going to have the edge. Jitter is fairly important - again, depends on the implementation. Some modern designs deal with jitter very well - some still ignore it completely. Anyway. My votes are for #5, #4, #3 and #2... In that order :-) Jon -- jhwilliams ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jhwilliams's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1876 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19240 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
