Adat Litepipe/Toslink Cables?

[idave]

Hello Guys, I have been looking over this Forum for the last few months and have found lots of invaluable information, you guys are great for giving so much of your time and passing along your nuggets and gems!!
I have recently bought an Alesis HD24 & Tascam DM-24 Digital Mixer to use along with Focusrite Octopre's (3) and I would like to stay in the digital realm which for me means using the Adat Litepipe connections. "Which" toslink cables to use is the BIG question here. I have scoured the web and done a fair amount of research on the benefits of "Glass" Fiber Toslink cables v other types. My only experience of Toslink cables have been with the stock cables that came with the equipment (that would be Adats in the early 90's, various DAT machines and my Digi 002R, actually the 002R I am now connecting from my Apogee Rosetta via an Apogee SPDIF cable) but you catch my drift I'm sure.
So, whats the story, Fiber, Glass, Hosa,Apogee, Monster etc? In a Bob Katz article he "seems" to suggest that the connection to the A/D,D/A converter is more important than "plastic v glass etc" , which does make sense as obviously the connection point is the "most" vulnerable.
Anyway, I am looking my options and here are a few of them (not in any order);-
1) Apogee WE-GP Wyde-Eye Glass Pro Cable
2) Acoustic Research Pro Fiber Optical cables
3) Monster Interlink® LightSpeed™ 100 High Performance Digtal Fiber Optic Cable,
Hosa and others!!!! My brain Hurts !!!
I would love to hear what you all think and have experience of?
I apologize for long email..
cheers
dave

[Gilliland]

I bought the ones that they sell at Walmart. They work fine.

[yrplace]

Nice heavy duty ones availabe for $4.00 from cablesforless.com.

[bishopthomas]

Don't get too hung up on cables. Just get something with a thick enough jacket and decent connectors to stand up on the road. Let the audiophiles be consumed by cable selection.

[sonare]

The only way to know for sure what will matter to you is to do a blind A-B comparison between cheapos and the most esoteric you can afford. Make sure you can return what you do not choose.

Have someone else switch between pairs and you keep score and see if your ears are really hearing a difference. Make sure you listen for at least 3 minutes but make sure the switch is as quick as possible-- aural memory is very short!

Otherwise you will either fall prey to other people's conceptions or the "more expensive must be better" approach. And don't be surprised if you don't hear ANY difference between 1 meter cables.

Rich

[larsfarm]

Originally Posted by sonare

The only way to know for sure what will matter to you is to do a blind A-B comparison between cheapos and the most esoteric you can afford. Make sure you can return what you do not choose.

I'm all for double blind testing as a means to introduce some sort of objectivity into things that are otherwise hard or impossible to measure. "Do they sound different or not?". But here one can do better. It's digital on one end of the cable and it's digital on the other. Compare what you send with what you receive. Count the number of bits or samples that differ. Perhaps as a loopback on an audio interface. Send a file out one ADAT and pick it up on the other. Are they still identical? If they are, then the cable does certainly not introduce any "sound" of its own. If they're not I'd expect crackles and pops rather than some mild degradation of the sound quality because a bit wrong in one word could as likely be in the MSB as in the LSB. Those errors should not be subtle.

L

[H-Rave]

Fibre-optic cable can transport up to a huge 1.4Gb/s over more than a hundred metres.this is glass in multi-mode which uses light refraction to transmit over several light spectrums off the sides of the fibre optic cable wall.We are of course talking about transmitting modern computer information over hundreds of metres and not audio data.I suspect that over 5 metres of plastic or glass cable over 10 metres would be almost impossible to measure, let alone hear.

[MattJazz]

Fibre-optic cable must be high quality. Especially if it is a mobile rig. (Monster Interlink® LightSpeed™ 100 High Performance Digtal Fiber Optic Cable) Great choice
One minute crack and you loose priceless data.
Just a friendly reminder from experience.

BNC all the way for clocking!
If you have more than two units you must end the signal as well!!

m

[morebutter]

monoprice.com. their adat cables are ridiculously cheap and excellent quality.

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by sonare

The only way to know for sure what will matter to you is to do a blind A-B comparison between cheapos and the most esoteric you can afford. Make sure you can return what you do not choose.

Have someone else switch between pairs and you keep score and see if your ears are really hearing a difference. Make sure you listen for at least 3 minutes but make sure the switch is as quick as possible-- aural memory is very short!

Otherwise you will either fall prey to other people's conceptions or the "more expensive must be better" approach. And don't be surprised if you don't hear ANY difference between 1 meter cables.

Rich

Has anyone done this test yet?