Optical stereo cables--better than HDMI?

[Thundersteel]

I recently bought some optical cables from a closing Radio Shack store. My Blue-Ray player & TV have optical outputs, and my receiver has optical inputs as well. Currently, everything is hooked up via HDMI cables.

Question--will I hear any improvement if I use optical cables instead of HDMI for the audio?

[unfun75]

Since both are digital I'd say no.

[anotherfreak]

i thought the main difference is hdmi does video as well

[Sugartune]

What's a Radio Shack?

[django49]

^^^^

Marconi's House.

[chromium]

Question--will I hear any improvement if I use optical cables instead of HDMI for the audio?

Actually, you're better off just sticking with HDMI (especially for the Blu-ray). Unlike optical, it supports more of the modern high def audio formats. So potentially (depending on what audio formats your gear supports), you'll get better quality audio as-is.

[Sugartune]

Ha! Marconi...

Ours were bought up by Circuit City and turned into The Source.

[Thundersteel]

Actually, you're better off just sticking with HDMI (especially for the Blu-ray).

I've been doing some reading, and those articles say the same thing. Optical cable is another technology that's gone obsolete, I suppose.

[Sugartune]

I think so too. I guess if you preferred component cables for your video, an optical cable would make sense. It may also just be optimal for audio only, for the purest signal? Not necessarily for multi-use. I've tried an optical cable along with HDMI and could find no difference.

[JohnnyB]

I recently bought some optical cables from a closing Radio Shack store. My Blue-Ray player & TV have optical outputs, and my receiver has optical inputs as well. Currently, everything is hooked up via HDMI cables.

Question--will I hear any improvement if I use optical cables instead of HDMI for the audio?

First of all, you won't hear an improvement by switching to optical (Toslink) cables from HDMI. You may not notice a degradation, but that depends on what you're plugging into what, whether you're using a multi-channel surround system, and subjectively whether you notice it.

HDMI provides separate conductors for the various elements of video--luminance, chrominance, etc.--plus 8 discrete channels for surround sound. The previous digital standard--a fiberoptic Toslink or RCA-connector coaxial cable--doesn't have the audio bandwidth to convey 8 channels of lossless high-def surround audio, e.g., Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, one of which is usually standard audio output from most Blu-ray discs today.

When you use Toslink from a Blu-ray player, the Blu-ray "dumbs down" the audio to a standard Dolby Digital or DTS, which has (I think) full resolution for left and right (and maybe center) channels, but lossy compression for the other channels.

Your Blu-ray has an HDMI output. What is the other video feed to your TV--cable/satellite box or broadcast TV? Are you feeding these HDMI signals directly to your TV or do you plug them into your AV receiver and then use the receiver's HDMI output to go to the TV?

For cable box and TV sources (unless your cable or satellite service has DDPlus or similar sound), you probably won't notice a difference with the Toslink cable. Sourced from the Blu-ray player, an all-HDMI connection should generally sound better, especially when decoded to surround sound.

[gorch]

...

First of all, you won't hear an improvement by switching to optical (Toslink) cables from HDMI. You may not notice a degradation, but that depends on what you're plugging into what, whether you're using a multi-channel surround system, and subjectively whether you notice it.

HDMI provides separate conductors for the various elements of video--luminance, chrominance, etc.--plus 8 discrete channels for surround sound. The previous digital standard--a fiberoptic Toslink or RCA-connector coaxial cable--doesn't have the audio bandwidth to convey 8 channels of lossless high-def surround audio, e.g., Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, one of which is usually standard audio output from most Blu-ray discs today.

When you use Toslink from a Blu-ray player, the Blu-ray "dumbs down" the audio to a standard Dolby Digital or DTS, which has (I think) full resolution for left and right (and maybe center) channels, but lossy compression for the other channels.

Your Blu-ray has an HDMI output. What is the other video feed to your TV--cable/satellite box or brodcast TV? Are you feeding these HDMI signals directly to your TV or do you plug them into your AV receiver and then use the receiver's HDMI output to go to the TV?

For cable box and TV sources (unless your cable or satellite service has DDPlus or similar sound), you probably won't notice a difference with the Toslink cable. Sourced from the Blu-ray player, an all-HDMI connection should generally sound better, especially when decoded to surround sound.

This deserves a Like!

[Thundersteel]

Your Blu-ray has an HDMI output. What is the other video feed to your TV--cable/satellite box or broadcast TV? Are you feeding these HDMI signals directly to your TV or do you plug them into your AV receiver and then use the receiver's HDMI output to go to the TV?

Everything plugs into my receiver, then is output to my TV. All inputs and outputs are via HDMI.

[JohnnyB]

Your Blu-ray has an HDMI output. What is the other video feed to your TV--cable/satellite box or broadcast TV? Are you feeding these HDMI signals directly to your TV or do you plug them into your AV receiver and then use the receiver's HDMI output to go to the TV?

Everything plugs into my receiver, then is output to my TV. All inputs and outputs are via HDMI.

Then you should keep it that way. Each HDMI cable is the equivalent of up to 11 separate cables--3 video cables plus up to 8 audio channels.

If you plug the HDMI directly into the TV and then use the optic cable to feed your AV receiver, you're using a lower-bandwidth audio signal to feed your AV receiver. If you plug HDMI directly into the receiver, it separates out the HD video from multi-channel audio, decodes the (sometimes lossless) audio signal into however many channels you've set it up for, and forwards the HD video signal to the TV with another HDMI cable.

It also keeps it somewhat simpler to select source at the AV receiver, because it selects both the audio and video and the TV only has to work off one HDMI input.