Coaxial/spdif

[renjith lal]

Hi All,

I bought a new DAC (Hegel HD11) and its manual recommends to use coaxial or spdif input to DAC for best performance though DAC accepts optical and usb input.

My present 3Dplayer (blueray player Panasonic BDT220) has optical audio out and no coaxial out . I am using it for playing FLAC and cds. I was thinking of using a optical to spdif converter. Few forum members suggested that toslink or optical implementation will be very bad in blue ray players and adding a converter may increase Jitter .

I am looking for a solution, options are either buy a dedicated cd player from Marantz/NAD or CA and use coaxial/spdif out to dac, but I may not be able to play flac. Other option is getting Oppo 103 which can play flac and I assume it has a good coaxial implementation. But again Oppo is very expensive in India and my present blue ray player become waste.
Another option coming to my mind is buying a normal 2D blueray player
from Sony which has coaxial out and use it. Any idea how good coaxial implementation in these players?


So I am looking for a transport which plays cds and flac and don't need a good dac as I am planning to use standalone dac, not sure if there is one at a reasonable price. Please let me know if you guys have any suggestion.

Thanks in advance.
Renjith

 

[srisaikat]

It appears you are not aware that Optical is also known as spdif, so don't worry so much, if you purchase a glass (not fiber) optical cable (Lifatec Glass Toslink Cables)then the performance will equal to any coax cable. Also there are some nice fiber optical cable available which performs very close to glass optical cables.

So I do not think there is necessity to buy another source. Rather there is one advantage of optical line, it have natural isolation from EMI and RFI. But one thing, optical line generally supports up to 24/96, not due to the cable but due to the transmitter/receiver end limitations (either dac end or source end or both), still there are very few exceptions.

 

[renjith lal]

I thought coaxial cable is called spdif (sony philips digital interface) and optical connection as toslink. While buying dac I bought one coaxial cable also. If optical glass or fiber cable is having similar performance compared to coaxial then I will try to get a good optical (glass or fiber) cable than spending money on another source.

Thanks srisaikat.

 

[srisaikat]

Just google 'spdif' or help yourself with - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF

 

[renjith lal]

If there is no major difference between coaxial and toslink other than 24/96, why the manufacturer is saying coaxial is the preferred connection? Can you guys explain the reason?

 

[srisaikat]

What I read that the manufacturer of Hegel HD11 recommended to use the COAX 1 as it is equipped with a special impedance matching circuit.

Read it- Hegel HD 11 Digital-to-Analogue Converter (Hi-Fi+) | The Absolute Sound.

But impedance matching problem is irrelevant to toslink connectivity. Spdif/toslink has bandwidth limitation that is why it generally do not work great with 24/192 files.

 

[renjith lal]

So that means if I am playing higher bandwidth there will be difference between Spdif/toslink and coaxial connections and for all other it will be same?
Thanks srisaikat.

 

[srisaikat]

practically yes, if you play anything over 24/96, there is greater possibility (very few hardware offer exceptions) that it will suffer through toslink.

 

[arj]

In most cases the toslink hardware ( conversion to toslink ) is not of good quality as very few people make it. hence both the conversion on one side and reconversion on the other is compromised.
do check out the resolution and how it deals with high frequencies while you do the comparison.

 

[renjith lal]

Thanks for all the replies.
Can I conclude like this. No need to look for a new source instead use my present blue ray player and use optical connection but use high quality cable. Using a an optical to coaxial converter not a good option.

I could have gone for a dedicated CD player with coaxial output but issue is that most cd players wont support flac other than oppo.
What about using a blue ray player from Sony which has coaxial output?
Advantage is that it supports flac. Will that be a good option or coaxial implementation in a mid level blue ray player will be good?

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[srisaikat]

Just use good optical cable (Glass optical will be best ).

on 2nd thought (if You can not afford oppo), buy Pioneer BDP-450 or BDP-170, both are decent as digital transport (supports flac also) as well as analog out (BDP-170).

 

[renjith lal]

Thanks srisaikat for your time and help. Oppo is very expensive to buy from India.
I can make a try for BDP170 and 450.

 

[renjith lal]

Looks like BDP170 is out of stock in amazon, flipkart etc.
BDP 180 is launched but it doesnt have coaxial out but only optical out .
So not sure what to do. Looks like most Sony blue ray players have coaxial out.

 

[manniraj]

Looks like BDP170 is out of stock in amazon, flipkart etc.
BDP 180 is launched but it doesnt have coaxial out but only optical out .
So not sure what to do. Looks like most Sony blue ray players have coaxial out.

I have a Oppo 980H model brought from a FM of Delhi lying unused with me (I think I am the 3rd owner). Its supposed to be a very good standard alone CD player even though it is a DVD player. It has a pretty good coaxial out and I was using it for CD playback connected to my Audio-GD DAC. If interested you can try it out as I am from Bangalore only. Just shoot a PM to me and we can take it forward.

 

[renjith lal]

Coaxial audio output is available in most of Sony BD players.
Any idea about implementation of coaxial output in sony players ?
Pioneer BPD 180 comes with toslink audio out only and 170 which has coaxial output is out of stock in most places.
Just wondering if any of sony entry level blue ray player will do my job of playing audio cd and flac? Or using sony bdp as a transport is not a good idea?

Please let me know your opinions.

 

[jai1611]

Coaxial audio output is available in most of Sony BD players.
Any idea about implementation of coaxial output in sony players ?
Pioneer BPD 180 comes with toslink audio out only and 170 which has coaxial output is out of stock in most places.
Just wondering if any of sony entry level blue ray player will do my job of playing audio cd and flac? Or using sony bdp as a transport is not a good idea?

Please let me know your opinions.

The coax out on Sony BDP players I've tried was ok - not as good as a decent CD transport but comparable to entry level CD players. However, neither of them played Flac. Not sure if the current models do

 

[srisaikat]

If you can get Sony BDP-S7200, that will do. Also I think Sony BDP S-5500 and S-5200 supports flac. Google yourself. Ebay link for S5500- http://www.ebay.in/itm/111770851541?aff_source=Sok-Goog

 

[Kannan]

Coaxial is preferred over toslink/optical due to higher jitter with the optical. However with good quality cable and a short run this can be offset. There is no bandwidth limitation unless the DAC limits it. What you cant do on toslink or coax is 5.1 split..it can only passthrough. That problem is not there in stereo output. The play back of format is not restricted. If coax can play flac, so can the toslink and the analogue output.

 

[renjith lal]

Thanks a lot jai and srisaikat for suggestions, appreciate your help.
BDP170 is quoted 14,500 and BDP180 around 19000. Though 170 is getting outdated price is not reduced.

I just checked the price in Japan and it is only 5000 INR for BDp170 and 11,000 for BDP180. In India dealers are not reducing much for older models .

BDP180 is having 4K upscaling and coaxial replaced by optical.

 

[renjith lal]

Thanks Kannan. For me usage is mainly for stereo only. But DAC recommends using coaxial input due to proprietary impedance matching .