bejoro wrote:Curt962 wrote:Digital is 1s, and 0's. There is no "straighter" "1", nor "rounder" 0's as the HiFi Pimps would like you to believe.
... Converting a digital audio input signal to an analog output not only needs the binary data but also a very precise corresponding clock signal. With SPDIF the clock signal is transmitted on one wire together with the binary data (very bad solution, but it is like it is).
Many DACs had no internal reclocking and had to use the clock signal of the source. The more jitter the clock signal the source introduced the worse the analog audio quality. Optical transmission is worse in this regard because of the conversion from electrical signals to optical and back...
Every DA-converter uses reclocking, even the receiver chips of the digital interface already have some built in.
Without re-clocking a DA-conversion does not work, because every digital interface has a huge amount of clock jitter, way beyond what would be usable as conversion clock directly.
TOSLINK Optical transmission delivers superior audio quality in most cases because it isolates, therefore prevents any ground loops building up on the digital signal path.
Ground loops practically are the number one source for analog signal degradation, causing a lot of head scratching going on even in this forum.
RME's ADI-2 (Pro) is quite sensitive to grounding issues.
I know what I'm talking about.
I'm using ADI-2 Pro for measurement and it makes me head scratching from time to time too.
I have to use USB in this setup, and the resulting stray ground loops on this path have given me problems more than once.
With any serious AD and DA converter of today clock jitter is a non-issue.
Not only RME knows about the importance of a good clock, this is just basic engineering.
Optical simply is the superior interface for digital in a HiFi and Studio environment, period.
Only with bad made converters under laboratory conditions, a situation that does have no practical relevance, other interfaces (which?) might give slightly better results -
if you look at the tiny differences of the jitter effect only.
Even then, if you look at other artifacts, TOSLINK/optical will be superior.
And who cares about bad made converters?