Submitted by Egon on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 04:53
I want to know, what cable do each of you use to connect your Airport Express to your DAC (or whatever is downstream)?
I have an Apple TV and Airport Express, but find the sound from ATV slightly better than Airport Express. Maybe more jitter, not sure the cause, but slightly less clear music. For convenience I'd prefer to use the AE, but not willing to give up the quality. Everything upstream (wireless server & Airtunes) and downstream are same when I make the comparisons.
My two differences are 1) the Apple TV vs. Airport Express, and 2) the optical cable, because of the Toslink from ATV vs. Mini-Toslink from A Ex. The Airport Express feeds a Monster optical cable that came from Apple; the other optical cable is also mass-manufactured, but may be different.
Looking for either suggestions of mini-toslink to toslink optical cable (under $100), or confirmation that someone else hears the difference between Apple TV vs. Airport Express. I'll bet I'm not the only one who owns both, and we all experiment. =-)
I also own the airport with the monster optical and have found, to some annoyance, that the cable is sensitive to physical placement. If the cable is wrapped with too many turns, I have found the sound to change in my DAC. The music becomes unpleasant and I can't even sit and listen for over 45 minutes. Once I take care to minimize the turns that the cable goes thru before it connects to the DAC, sound improves considerably. Now I use strategically placed zipties to hold the optical cable such that it goes through the least number of turns and that the turns are gentle.
Because the optical cable is a cable you have a tendency to treat with the same disregard as an electrical cable; once the connection is good at the ends of the cable then no more worries. At least with this optical cable, that definitely is not the case.
What I have now been looking for is a really short minitoslink cable or a male toslink to male mini-toslink adapter so that the express can pretty much directly connect to the DAC. So far I haven't had any luck.
Sonic food for thought:)
CD
guys,
I use an Apple TV as Airtunes client - with a Wireworld Toslink cable.
I've never purchased a 'higher' quality mini-toslink, but apparently vandenhul make an Optocoupler with a native (sans adapter) mini-Toslink on one end. it's just a bit more than $100.
http://www.eugenehifi.com/VanDenHul/htm/van_den_Hul_Digital_and_AV_Cable...
enjoy the music,
clay
Thanks for your help. I straightened out the Monster cord, and you're right, it helped some. Maybe not as much as I'd like, but good enough for now.
Also, my apologies for re-asking an old question. I did what I should have done first, and used the "search" function of this site for mini-toslink, and found this question asked multiple times already with lots of useful information. If anyone has anything new to add I appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll assume what you've all said in previous posts still stands.