Digital Coaxial Cable Splitter

[TheNit]

My digital audio receiver is approximately 25' from my video equipment. I have my DVD's digital coax out connected via a 25 foot Audioquest VSD1 cable to the receiver's only digital coax in (there are 3 optical inputs). I am about to puchase a HDTV receiver (Motorola) that has both optical and coax out and need to connect it to the audio receiver. I don't really want to use an optical cable because the 25 feet that it traverses has a lot of turns and I am worried about the robustness of the cable. Also, a 25 foot optical cable is expensive. There are 2 options as I see it. One is to have another 25 foot digi coax cable made up, buy a coax to optical converter and buy a short optical cable to connect to the receiver. This gets expensive as well. The other (least expensive) option is to get a simple A/B switch so that I have 2 short digi coax cables (likely from Blue Jeans Cables) going from the DVD and the HD receiver into the A/B switch and the Audioequest VSD1 cable coming out and going to the receiver. The question that I need answered is what kind of A/B switch do I get? Do I put "RCA to F" adaptors on the cables and purchase a video switch (F connectors) or do I get a A/V switch that has left/right audio and video (all RCA) and connect the cables to the video ins/outs (or audio ins/outs if it really matters)? Will the quality of the signal be affected so that you would notice it?

 

[Richard Black]

<<I don't really want to use an optical cable because the 25 feet that it traverses has a lot of turns and I am worried about the robustness of the cable. Also, a 25 foot optical cable is expensive.>>

It's not that expensive! It's a lot more robust than you think, too. I use opticals all the time for linking various bits of digital audio gear and I've accidentally subjected them to all kinds of abuse without a hiccup. Plus it's really small and neat. I'd go optical. Thing is with digital connections, if it works when you connect it up it's working. No half measures. Anything that affects sound will affect it big time.

Richard

 

[TheNit]

The cheapest 8m toslink cable that I have seen on the internet is about 100 USD. For a 8m coax cable from Blue Jeans Cable (belden 1694a) it costs about 24 USD. The strange thing is that many experts say that for long distances, optical is better but if you go to any cable (sales) website, the only type of digital cable over 5m is coaxial. Do you have somewhere that makes optical cable at a reasonable price? Anybody can make up quality coaxial cable and sell it (blue jeans) at a reasonable price but you don't find the same for optical cables

 

[TheNit]

Found reasonably priced Toslink Cables !!!

I found a website (www.sysconcept.ca) for Sys. Concept Inc who are located in Alberta, Canada. They made up an 8 metre (26 foot) premium Toslink to Toslink optical cable for $51 Canadian. Ordered it and it was delivered inside a week (I'm in Canada also). Haven't had a chance to hook them up yet. Very reasonable.