 'lo there
does anyone know what the benefit in buying an expensive oprical lead is, to the cheapest? because being optical, it shouldn't make a difference, should it?
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It does make a small difference. Not enormous.
The best thing is to keep the cable length short.
There aren't really any high end optical cables. Go electrical if you can - much better.
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i just don't see any benefit in expensive optics, interference doesn't affect it...
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Quality of the optical medium and the connection are the factors. Best to abandon it altogether though and use a conventional wire connection if that is available.
When you use optical, the player converts from electrical to optical and the DAC at the other side converts from optical to electrical. It's better to avoid optical altogether to keep the whole signal in the electrical domain. Optical is more of a gimmick than anything.
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 Mike - completely off topic but is your picture a killer wheatabix?
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chris, good point
brucie, weetabix, teddy, turd, japanese tv mascot called domo-kun, you choose
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Because optical cable in this instance with HiFi (I'll take it you mean toslink) is used to send digital signals, it's the same as with coax used for digital transmission the only criteria is that it is of suffcient to carry the signal of the required bandwidth. Above this point you'll notice absolutely no difference.
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As for the OP - there's almost no difference between high quality TOSLink opticals and cheap one. Generally, the expensive ones have better sheathing and more robust plugs for studio use. Short runs (under 6m) sound a little better than long ones, (no idea why!). However, in ever system I have ever heard, co-ax sounds better than optical. Also, the quality of the coax has a profound difference on the sound. with usual obsessive hifi behaviours, I put a Toslink between my old Karik CD and Numerik DAC - it sounded bloody horrible, so I went back to the nice chord co-ax. Point proven 
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 For Gods sake weather it be optical or coax the signal is a digital bit-stream, if the bits arrive then you have a connection as good as perfect, if they don't arrive then you do not have a connection. Digital is quite different from analogue, it is only one's and nought's if they can get down a metre of cable/fibre then they get there, all 'toslink' connections are a plastic fibre, therefore basically the same, all coax connections are simply that, a cable and all basically the same. Note all differences are before the critical components D/A converters etc. so they are simply sending a digital stream, no analogue subtleties, no subtle differences, no nothing just a raw digital stream. Personally I have noticed that closing the door, or the curtains actually produces a far greater acoustic difference than a cable or even a CD player, so please understand just how subtle these differences really are. Given that all other differences are completely controlled then 'cables' disappear into obscurity, there are many other more important issues to contend with. John...
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 u try the wireworld supernova5+ 280 glassfibres it will knock u off u feat,what no difference between different links try this pearl of wireworld iam shure u change u mind ,like i did . its faster its more detailed... its placing with instruments on a dts disc is so different then my coax vd hul videolink,so much more enjoyable . hear the difference to know the difference thats the message . ciao audiofreaks have fun with the music and everything that comes with it ciao hans
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