What’s an optical cable ?
An optical audio cable is a cable that contains one/more optical fibers. These fibers are usually coated individually with some sort of plastic layers and they are inserted in optical cable shielding tubes that will suppress any outside factor that might interrupt the flow of light.
Why Optical Audio Cable ?
The simple reason is that fiber optic is the best technology used for the sending of data without any electricity to run through a conductor. What this means is that a modulated light is used for the quick transmission of the data and this data goes through a insulated/protected fiber glass material.
The great thing about this is that the signal isn’t disrupted by any outside source so nothing can interfere with the signal unlike the normal electricity that traveled in form of normal AV cords.
A good question would be if the optical audio cables can carry 5.1 signal or if they can handle stereo.
Optical Audio Cable
The answer is simple: they can do that easily, the only thing that needs to be done is configuring the device for the output and you also get enhanced audio experience coming out of your system.
Most of the nowadays audio systems aren’t using the analog signals to create sound. Almost any new system that you can get will use digital signals 0′s and 1′s.
Digital audio cables are created for the preservation and sending the audio signals for the production of superior sound experience.
As you probably know by now, there are two different type of cables : the optical audio digital cable and the coaxial.
We are only going to talk about the optical audio cable because this is the reason of this piece.
Characteristics of optical audio cables
They are the preferred choice when it comes to digital audio quality signals that need to be transmitted between two components.
RCA style connectors are ditched in favor of using what’s named toslink digital optical also known as EIA-J.
The beauty of these cables is the usage of light pulse for the data transmission instead of normal copper wires. Electromagnetic and radio signal interferences are non-existent in this type of cables so the signal is safer and won’t degrade or weaken when it’s transmitted over long distances.
The end result of using optical audio cables ? The end result is that you get the best digital signal reproduction without any type of distortions that namely inductance, resistance and let’s not forget capacitance.
Now as most of us know, an optical audio cable is a little more expensive than a regular copper cable or other sort of cables in this category.
That’s because of the added benefits that one could get if acquiring an optical audio cable and if you are a true audiophile ( like me ) , I suppose that the price tag is already justified ( nothing can beat a fibre optical cable ).
Many users will tell you that there’s no difference between coaxial and optical cables but I have to say something about this and specially if you have an environment where there’s alot of electromagnetic interference, the optical cables are the best.
The little downside, well, we can’t really say that it’s a negative part, but oh well…
You have to be a little cautious on how you handle them because if they are bent nasty, they will fail to deliver the promised experience and you also need to be carefully how you install them in your house.
Well, I guess that that’s everything regarding optical audio cables.