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Is the Optical Cable Dying? (cnet.com)
Geoffrey Morrison from CNET explains how the optical cable is "dying a very slow death": The official term for optical audio cable is "Toslink," short for Toshiba Link. Developed in the early '80s to connect their CD players to their receivers, it was a red laser optical version of the Sony/Phillips "Digital Interconnect Format" aka S/PDIF standard. You've seen standard S/PDIF connections a bunch too; they're often called "coax digital." Optical had certain benefits over copper cables, but they were also more fragile, and for a long time, more expensive. Though glass cables were available, for even more money, most optical cables were made from cheap plastic. This limited their range to in-room use, primarily. Through the '90s and 2000's, the optical cable was near-ubiquitous: The easiest way to get Dolby Digital and DTS from your cable/satellite box, TiVo, or DVD player to your receiver. Even in the early days of HDMI, right next to it would be the lowly optical cable, ready in case someone's receiver didn't accept HDMI. But now more and more gear are dropping optical. It's gone completely on the latest Roku and Apple TV 4K, for example. It's also disappeared from many smaller TVs, though it lingers on in larger ones, a potentially redundant backup to HDMI with ARC. The reason for this? Soundbars...
No not at all. Then again, if you limit it specifically to fiber audio, it might well. However that is a flawed, dumb definition.
I grew up in the 90s and I use optical audio, mainly because my dad uses optical audio. I don't know of any other person who uses it or has used it. I find it hard to believe it was "nearly ubiquitous" for 10-20 years, I think it was little known then, and remains so now. I also think it unlikely that because cheaper devices don't have it now because it is "going away" like consumer trends are some mystical power. Its a more expensive alternative to conventional audio connections, and most people, particularly low end users will not ever want this. It makes sense for it to only be on the "bigger" but more relevantly expensive tv sets, it provides a high quality audio connection with very low interference at a higher price. I don't remember ever seeing it on cheaper tvs.
I found it pleasant to use optical in a stereo setting to solve ground loop issues (hum!), since there is no electrical connection
Specifically to use optical audio out instead of analog out from my tv to my hifi.
I later found it was the antenna connection that caused the ground loop.
Nowadays I use hdmi for everything which is balanced (if I remember well), hence no hum issues either
the more I think of it, the more I suspect this is designed to "get rid of the analog hole"
removing the headphone jack (unencrypted analog audio), and the toslink/SPDIF connector (unencrypted digital audio) goes towards the goals of the mafiaa...