Which is best, Optical or Digital Coaxial?

[KOPITE]

Hi Guys

Which of the digital optical or digital coax is better in terms of quality picture, sound and price

I need to buy me one today. also where in cape town can i buy good quality 1.

I always hear about gold tips and stuff, does that actually make a difference.

 

[Dolby]

They're only for sound ; not picture.

Technically, they say the coaxial is better and the one I prefer to get.
Practically you'd not going to notice a difference

Price wise, the coaxial is the cheaper option ...

 

[TJ99]

They're both for sound only and they're both digital, thus quality isn't an issue. Gold tips and all that crap is definitely BS to make money from suckers. The quality of cable will make a difference in analog applications like speaker wiring but not in this case (as long as it's good enough to maintain a solid connection.

 

[GforceD]

They're both for sound only and they're both digital, thus quality isn't an issue. Gold tips and all that crap is definitely BS to make money from suckers. The quality of cable will make a difference in analog applications like speaker wiring but not in this case (as long as it's good enough to maintain a solid connection.

ya once you go digital then it really doesn't matter unless you talking about cabling some serious distances
Dolby i also dunno why coax would be considered better than optical. optical would be the better choice in terms of latency and interference but that's only where distance come in anyway.

i would go optical but that's just cause it's easier to hide, cabling wise.

in the analogue world gold tips were the bomb eliminated a lot of noise.

 

[Dolby]

Theoretically, optical is more prone to jitter than coax - and there is the conversion of both ends from electrical > light and light > electrical.

You'll notice on budget devices you'll get optical only and as you go higher up the scale, they start adding coaxial connections - which the majority of audiofolk use

Pricewise a coaxial cable is a standard 75 ohm video cable. YOu could - if you want - use your thin RCA video cable that they sell for R15.00