On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 13:17:37 +0000
Nutter wrote:

Or, better, use optic fibre which is just as cheap and eliminates any
possibility of transmitting electrical noise between components.

Bull****! Tell be where you can get a 10m Optical cable for £1? Which
if you go to Maplins is all it would cost you in parts to make a
perfectly suitable coax digital.

You show me the parts list...

I just went to maplins and the CHEAPEST phono *connectors* (no cable)
are 49 pence each.
cheap cable of a suitable type looks to be ~50p/metre so thats 1.50
worth of cable too.

so, you're talking 2.50 worth of material and thats BEFORE you add
shipping. Do you consider your time soldering worthless?

Shipping costs 2.50 btw.

so, your 3m coax lead will cost you 5ukp.
my 3m optical lead cost me 6ukp. (dont forget it wont propagate noise,
btw)

wow was I ripped off. **** maannn....

For short lengths. and it really *ought* to be 75 ohm, too. That
said, 6m probably counts as short.

No - For any length

Haha. yeah, ok whatever.

If you can hear a sound with no skips or breaks, then the cable is
working perfectly.

Not necessarily. a DAC could well conceal small errors in the signal.

Only it you've got a crap DAC,

No, nothing to do with crap. its a design choice - some DACs conceal 'clicks' or 'pops' (whilst not altering 'good' data) because they sound nasty. others choose to play it as is because some people like to hear the errors so they can seek ultimate perfection (or whatever).

In any case, I challenge anyone to do a blind test and tell the
difference between Coax and Optical.

With a GOOD DAC I very much doubt I would be able to tell.

Optical may not be 'better', or rather, coax may be no worse - but coax CANT do better than optical. As optical is not more expensive (1ukp isnt a significant difference, and thats comparing a commercial lead to a self-build), WHY NOT use it?

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