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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...
Betamax had potential too...
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I might have been the only household that skipped directly from composite to HDMI.
Not a problem, just throw some opto-isolators in there.
No not at all. Then again, if you limit it specifically to fiber audio, it might well. However that is a flawed, dumb definition.
Digital optical is utterly inferior to HDMI Audio. It only supports 2 channels uncompressed, anything other than that. 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 is compressed.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Unlike HDMI, TOSLINK does not have the bandwidth to carry the lossless versions of Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, or more than two channels of PCM audio.
HDMI supports uncompressed audio, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 or even greater.
.
especially with better codecs.
Also, modern plastic chemistries have tremendously improved, with things like longer distances (>100m) and/or multi-gigabites now possible on POF (Plastic Optical Fiber).
That means that if you can wire up your whole house or you whole building LAN with cheap plastic oprtical fiber (doesn't even require a termination, you just cut the cable and plug then directly into the connector of the box, a little bit reminiscent of speaker connectors), you could definitely go beyond in-room use. Distributing sound over long distances if you want, *without* any ground loops.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Old tech made obsolete, slowly disappears from new products. News at 11.
Seriously though, I had nothing but trouble with SPDIF. The finicky connection would often desync with my Xbox360 and IIRC then I'd have to turn the receiver off and back on to resync it, and it'd make a weird noise until I did. Bending the cable just wrong would exacerbate the issue.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
It might also be a race to the bottom: appliances are cheaper, so not popular features get dropped. Many TVs might not receive analogue video anymore.
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.
but why the fuck would you use toslink when you don't need it? most people just connect to the tv and thats it.
the tv might have digital out, sure. but a roku you connect through the tv anyways even if you have an amp!
also, why the fuck just not use digital copper coax...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That's what Monster gold cables are for!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Just look at the data rates we have over copper network cables. Even the oldest coax network was 10mbit/s. The highest quality audio signal is still just a few hundred kbit/s. Why wood you need an optical for this? It has always been a useless waste of money.
I see that toslink has its uses. I use one to connect my PS2 for those times I feel like retrogaming, but I think you and I are the rare exceptions.
I don't waste an HDMI ports for ARC. I have several HDMI ports on my TV and my amp, so "wasting" one for ARC actually gives me more inputs to play with. The bigger problem is poorly implemented CEC.
Is the cable length limit a problem for most people? My amp is in the cabinet along with the rest of my media equipment. None of my cables are longer than 1m.
HDMI supports uncompressed audio, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 or even greater.
Which is irrelevant if you only have stereo speakers, made specifically for music and not cinema.
HDMI actually has a disadvantage here - it does not support audio without video.
The problem with HDMI is that it is an A/V interconnect.
At the end of the day you need a pure audio interconnect to transmit digital audio to amp and speakers, without getting those obsoleted every few years by video codec changes. You can argue newer audio codecs are better, but the limiting factor for sound is almost always the analog part. Smarter digital encoding is not going to help vibrate the air better than a bigger expensive not replaced every year amp/speaker set.
Video is quite different as newer tech helps cramming more pixels so regular updates and not investing in long-term hardware makes sense.
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 reason for this? Soundbars..."
Nope.
The reason for this is - I don't want a separate connector for audio unless it's in conjunction with another connector (i.e. I either want one cable only, or one cable + additional audio to go to external devices). The external device itself could happily use the HDMI audio, and offer passthrough / splitting of the signal.
The problem is that the "other" connector almost certainly has to be able to supply video, audio, data and - sorry - power. Fibre cannot supply power. Ever.
And then most people would rather give it a whole HDMI with everything, rather than run a separate cable just for audio. To be honest, splitters are in the throwaway price range now, even with HDCP support etc.
The problem is that manufacturer's think "fibre just for audio" is a useful thing to have alongside "copper that does absolutely everything" when both are commodity pricing. Hell, just give me 10 HDMI slots and if I really want to run a soundbar, I'll run one with HDMI and/or put a convertor on it.
The other thing that matters - nobody really cares about the fibre "perfect sound" rubbish except audiophiles. But that's like saying "nobody cares about the flight simulator being pixel perfect except for qualified 747 pilots". You can't cater to that niche, as the business case isn't there to do so in a commercial product. But 99.9% of people are quite happy with MP3s, copper cables (especially digital copper cables), and the various MPEG/H264 etc. compressions.
I've been in IT for 20 years. I've honestly NEVER used an optical connection for sound. I deploy AV stuff all the time. I've even done bits of theatre stuff. The only optical connections I've ever used a networking fibres. And they are so cheap they don't even figure, what costs is the cutting and polishing, which wouldn't be present on a pre-made patch cable. So I also call rubbish on the "fibre is expensive, or can't reach across the room" line too.
But if I've never used SPDIF, I'm pretty sure most other people haven't either. And given that even RCA connectors are going the way of the dodo (and SCART in Europe), I can't say that SPDIF is going to last any longer.
Now, if you had a hybird, cable/fibre. Maybe that would serve. If it could do everything HDMI did. But HDMI even does Ethernet if you buy the right kit. So I can't fathom how you'd cut into their business.
All we really need is a merger of USB3 and HDMI and we have one connector for ABSOLUTELY everything. Including a decent amount of power. But fibre isn't necessary for that and would lose enormously if it was attempted.
I think you missed the boarding call for S.S. Sarcasm
Your bits will become dangerously oblong if you don't use a Monster(tm) Isotopically Pure(tm) High Electron Mobility gold cable.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I've had probably a dozen devices with an optical output, laptops, CD players, DVD players, music streaming boxes, and I'm probably forgetting something. What was rare was anything with an optical audio input, or it seems that way to me. The only thing I can recall having an optical input was this fancy (for the time) SoundBlaster card I bought as part of a computer system from my brother.
I've also had a lot of things with S/PDIF copper inputs and outputs but I don't recall ever having a situation where I actually used them. Most cases for using audio cables from a device to another is connecting an audio source directly to an amplifier. I've had hi-fi stereo systems in the past but the lack of anything with digital inputs meant all those things with digital outputs would be connected with the analog outputs to the pre-amp.
I guess I would have used the optical cables if there were more products that had optical inputs. I suppose I didn't really look all that hard for them but then if all these devices had optical outputs then someone was using them, right? No one I knew used them, but then that's not something that comes up in conversation often.
Now we have digital audio over HDMI, USB, Ethernet, DisplayPort, and more. These cables do more than carry audio too, such as video, power, and remote control signals. I liked the idea of optical audio because it gives a digital signal and keeps electrical isolation, but it never seemed to get off the ground for me.
Optical audio only seems to come up for me when I have a poorly configured Linux audio driver that turns on an optical output, I notice a red dot on a wall, and it takes a minute to realize where it's coming from. I then think for a second on how it might be nice to use that digital audio for something, and then remember I don't have anything with an optical input, and forget about it again.
Is optical audio dying? I have to ask, was it ever alive?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I still use S/PDIF in one form or another, and some of my computers only have the optical version. For starters, I don't have a TV that can input audio via HDMI, and if I did, I'd still need a S/PDIF from that to my amplifier. The display is a regular monitor which I might some day recycle into desktop use.
I first came across S/PDIF last decade, as I found out my laptop could output the optical version through the 3.5 mm plug with an adapter. I still think it's a great solution to the limited space issue for laptop connectors. However, they seemed to disappear the moment HDMI came about; who needs separate geeky cables, when you can just buy an all-in-one solution for docile consumers.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Digital optical is utterly inferior to HDMI Audio. It only supports 2 channels uncompressed, anything other than that. 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 is compressed.
More so than you are letting on with that information. For many people the desire to carry Dolby TrueHD or some other stuff like that is not interesting. But even then the digital optical is inferior to any other interface. Put a scope on a typical TOSLINK input and you'll see nasty looking barely square waves. This wouldn't be significant if equipment didn't then use the edges of these to derive the clock signal causing it to jitter back and forth.
The only benefit it provided over its cabled brethren was isolation but that can also be achieved with a simple and far better performing pulse transformer.
The standard never got a foothold in professional audio.
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...
I use it almost daily. Not only on my home stereo when streaming from my rMBP, but also in the office, for high end audio / mic setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Which is why ADAT using the same cables has to use different transmitters.
Call bullshit when you know what you're talking about and/or can do basic research online.
Toslink is honestly a weirdo at this point. For the various formats and bitrates it accepts, especially over short distances, optical is hilarious overkill(though it certainly keeps ground loops away). The original, early to mid 80s, spec is ~3mb/s, even the most recent (and thus least reliably 'universal') are 125mb/s; which is why copper S/PDIF often gets the nod if it is included at all, you can do those transmission rates over all but the most awful RCA cables.
At the same time, thanks to the comparatively slow rate of improvement, compared to HDMI/DP embedded audio, the 'entire optical transmitter dedicated to audio' still manages to be of more limited capabilities.
It's just sort of weird: almost everywhere else, copper has beaten out optical except where it can't be avoided(and 'short range, low bitrate, digital signal in non-scary RF environment') isn't one of those places. I'm sure they had their reasons when they decided on it originally; but it sure seems weird now.
I actually just started using them in the past year.
I bought a few Chromecast Audio's, and since I could I used optical cable to connect them to the amplifiers for minimum noise.
I also got a NUC not long ago, and wanted to connect the audio from the NUC to my desktop computer so I could listen to stuff on the NUC using the same headset I use for my desktop.
To do this I got a HDMI audio splitter, and fed that to my desktop. I tried using the regular 3.5mm line-out to line-in cable, but the background noise from the NUC was intolerable. So, I switched to using an optical cable which has zero background noise.
So, I'd say it still has a place, though the combined 3.5mm copper/optical jack seems to be a better solution going forward compared to the slightly awkward TOSLINK connector.
The merits of TOSLink notwithstanding, why is it, in 2003, I had SoundStorm built into my motherboard, and it allowed me a 5.1 Dolby Digital sound path to my A/V Receiver from my computer for ALL of my audio, including game audio - yet in 2017, I need to buy a Xonar sound card (forget SoundBlaster, because their digital drivers suck ass and their high end card sits on a shelf here) to get the same functionality?
Likewise, we have 7.1 and greater speaker systems, but the stores all push 2.1 soundbars. Ugh. I've been enjoying surround sound since the early 90s. I like having noises behind me when watching shows.
I remember laughing out loud when I was looking for a toslink cable a few years ago, and I noticed it had gold plated connectors.
Yes, a gold plated optical cable! What the f...
Of course, that was the only one they had, so I actually own a gold plated toslink cable, damnit.
My stereo is old enough not to have HDMI switching, but it's DTS so why replace it? My TV has HDMI switching, and it has a digital audio passthrough to my stereo in the form of an optical output. My amplifier has one coaxial and three or four optical spdif connections. The last thing on which I actually used the coaxial connection was an Apex DVD player of yore. There was no good reason to use optical cables (it's digital audio, so you can solve the ground loop problem easily enough without degrading the signal — does coaxial spdif have enough power to run an opto-isolator?) because of the low bitrates involved, but that's what everyone chose to implement. My PC has a coaxial digital audio output, but I've never used it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you connect an audio equipment (say, an AVR) over hdmi to your pc, it will detect it as a display device. You need tho have that virtual screen enabled to get the audio. There are some problems with that: a) it will take up some video ram for nothing, b) it can cause weird issues like windows opening on that invisible screen, mouse cursor lesving your visible desktop area, etc.
Digital optical is utterly inferior to HDMI Audio. It only supports 2 channels uncompressed, anything other than that. 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 is compressed.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Great. Now show me a modern, HDMI-equipped receiver that sounds anywhere as near as good as my circa 1998 NAD T750. As long as I can get a Blu Ray player with 5.1 analog audio output, I'll be set for discs and streaming, but I need that Toslink output (and a decoder box) from my TV for OTA broadcasts.
Netcraft does not confirm it.
Status: hoax.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As to why they'd remove SPDIF from Apple TV etc. what the fuck was it ever doing there? If I plugged the optical cable from the Apple TV to the amplifier, and then switched the TV to a broadcast channel, the audio would still come from the Apple TV. This is why they put the port on the TV, and its the only place it should ever be.
Sadly, the most modern TV sets with OLED have re-introduced screen burn-in. An optical audio cable separate from HDMI lets me turn off the TV when I'm "watching" an audio-only channel with a static image (I'm looking at YOU, PBS!).
I use my Toslink for my sound bar. All my HDMI ports are dedicated to my various content boxes or gaming systems. Optical audio works well enough.
If you only have stereo speakers, you still don't want to have to pay extra for a TV that will transcode the audio just to make it easier to transmit (though the ability to convert to Stereo PCM would be built-in). Many TV's have a 3.5mm stereo output too.
I know 3.5mm cable isn't the most reliable, but you'll already be on a site that sells RG-6 3.5mm to RCA adapter cables:
https://www.monoprice.com/prod...
The problem I have with HDMI audio is that a video signal must accompany the audio signal for it to work.
I use Toslink for my computer to send stereo audio to my amp for my bookshelf computer speakers.
If I try to use HDMI, I have to connect my amp to my video card and set my desktop to extended mode and have this "dummy" desktop space that I can't see and that I can easily lose both my mouse cursor and windows to if I accidentally drag them over to the extended desktop space.
You might ask why not connect my monitor to the amp, or enable desktop mirroring mode. Well, my computer monitor is 2560x1440 at 165Hz and no amp with HDMI can do that.
So, what would you propose? I would use digital coaxial, but my motherboard doesn't have that, it has a Toslink output port which works great. I'm not interested in more than stereo speakers for my computer.
ARC is primarily used for receivers that have their own HDMI inputs. It's not a separate port - the same one that sends picture from the receiver's inputs to the TV also carries audio back to the receiver from the TV's inputs.
The idea was established before every TV had HDMI inputs and still not every TV has S/PDIF out.
You know it's possible for a receiver to have more than one optical input, right?
I know 3.5mm cable isn't the most reliable, but you'll already be on a site that sells RG-6 3.5mm to RCA adapter cables: https://www.monoprice.com/prod...
Yeah, I've got one of those for my Philips UHD/3D player. I can't even imagine being willing to pay Oppo prices.
HDMI has "changed" every few years, but the cable is exactly the same and compatibility hasn't really changed. No, we don't need one more competing standard.
And dump everything that's higher bandwidth than AC-3, because it won't support it. No Dolby Digital Plus, No TrueHD, no Master Audio.
The problem I have with HDMI audio is that a video signal must accompany the audio signal for it to work. I use Toslink for my computer to send stereo audio to my amp for my bookshelf computer speakers.
In the future I can see interconnects being handled more with wifi/ethernet. Optical/analog will still be used for minimalist set ups like yours but every media box/game console/TV etc will start to use wifi to do that if they haven't already. And these boxes are already cheap. For example in your case, Google Chromecast and Amazon Firestick are $35 USD, $40 USD respectively and both have an extremely tiny footprint and low power requirements.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Digital Optical was also used on a lot of component CD players that didn't have a built-in amplifier.
Anyplace people use variable speed drives for motors and don't install reactors on the drives.
which is why ADAT is using the same cables and transmitters, carries 8 channels, and is used everywhere...
Err ADAT did not use S/PDIF. The specific incompatibility with multi-channel audio was one of of the reasons it used neither S/PDIF nor the equivalent professional standard AES3. It was entirely proprietary to itself.
I call bullshit
I call ignorance.
Yes there were a few like that, but read through the manuals. You'll find that you needed to use ADAT to support multi-channel audio. The "chip" you're talking about is nothing more than a digital receiver. If you dig into the products you'll find that various receivers support a multitude of different standards. But the fact remains that S/PDIF did not support multi channel audio and had some serious shortcomings (not the least of which was a 10m cable length) and thus was not used in professional equipment as anything other than an afterthought. AES3 was the professional interface.
Betamax had potential too...
That was actually used by broadcast operations... It was the "professional" standard.. Toslink is not really a professional standard, at least not any more. It doesn't carry enough channels and suffers from being dependent on optical cabling. AES50 works on standard network cabling and distances and carries 32 channels each way.
Toslink is being supplanted by HDMI and Bluetooth for a reason that's totally different than Sony's Betamax demise... Why run two cables when one or none works just fine?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
and it works great.
At work we have a very nice looking executive conference room that was mostly configured before I worked here. If you look at that picture the audio equipment is behind the wall with the pictures on it. The main screen is behind the photographer, and so is the PC that runs the main screen. The tech who did part of the original setup ran an 1/8" to RCA cable from the TV's output all the way to the audio amplifier behind that other wall, past florescent lights and everything else in the ceiling. To say the least there was a buzz in the system that I could sometimes get rid of by wiggling cables, putting a little shielding here or there and praying for the best. I didn't like that solution.
Now, I can work fiber optics, I learned that from my years at NASA. I had never really worked with TOS before beyond using some cheap plastic light-guide short distances on stereo equipment on occasion and with my Turtle Beach headset on my work Mac, main system sound went to the dongle via TOS and the USB portion did voice - an awesome setup on what would have been an awesome headset had they not used the most brittle plastic they could find to mold it. I started calling fiber suppliers looking for the connectors so I could make my own cable - they didn't call back. It took a little research to find out that TOS doesn't work on standard OC3 cable, or any other fiber I have run in the past, part of the reason my suppliers didn't carry it. I also found mixed information about the range of TOS saying it topped out around 15 feet or so, and some giving it a lot more.
I figured out it's a lot like Ethernet - some who learned Ethernet 25 years ago is going to keep in mind there's a limit to accumulative cable length throughout the whole network, the longer you make one cable the shorter the rest have to be, that it's a collision based system where only two systems can talk at a time, etc... Things that used to be true and are still true on really, really old equipment, some of which may still be in use, but using more up to day components there's a new reality. You can now buy TOS in high quality glass fiber, and it will go further. You still have limitations because the width of the fiber has to be "wide" to accommodate signal - at least I assume it does, I don't know if it's single-mode or multi, but I'm assuming it carries a wave form instead of a simple on/off since the requirements seem to stand. I eyeballed the room - I didn't really measure it, and I shopped. I found a 65 ft cable from a company I had never heard of and I have to tell you it works great. No more static, the sound quality is great. The only complaint is they can no longer use the TV remote to change volume, but the volume keys on the keyboard work. Since they only use the Direct TV in that room during really big soccer matches I don't see an issue.
I don't think I could have stretched HDMI that far. I could have converted it to SDI and changed it back to do it, but that would require an active box on both sides since nothing in play supports SDI natively. SDI is great for professional equipment, but the budgets I get to do thing usually don't allow for true professional grade equipment - not to mention pro grade equipment is usually a little behind consumer grade equipment when it comes to screen sizes and other little features that advertising people lock onto and "must have". I think I'm finally past having to explain to desktop users why they're better off with a wired keyboard and an Ethernet cable instead of wireless and WiFi, the power of news and buzz words is incredibly strong to marketing people and even though pure logic can win a lot of arguments, when the person who controls the money wants the biggest things with the right buzz words you sometimes have to get it, and SDI isn't a modern buzzword, even if modern SDI can support 4K.
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The problem I have with HDMI audio is that a video signal must accompany the audio signal for it to work. I use Toslink for my computer to send stereo audio to my amp for my bookshelf computer speakers.
In the future I can see interconnects being handled more with wifi/ethernet. Optical/analog will still be used for minimalist set ups like yours but every media box/game console/TV etc will start to use wifi to do that if they haven't already. And these boxes are already cheap. For example in your case, Google Chromecast and Amazon Firestick are $35 USD, $40 USD respectively and both have an extremely tiny footprint and low power requirements.
Yea, I'm not interested in new equipment though. My DTS 5.1 receiver can take HDMI input, but to get the video to the TV I have to output as component. That gets degraded because it's not an HDCP compliant "secure path".
The awful DRM crap they packed into HDMI make it useless for a lot of stuff, because everything has to be sealed up in one cable. If you're trying to get your signal to more than one device, you can't. You can't output it.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The problem I have with HDMI is that little of my audio equipment supports it. I've got everything running on RCA or 3.5mm, which are basically interchangable with the right cable. I could probably get HDMI audio output off my video card if I replaced one of my VGA/DVI monitors and passed it through somehow... Then also replaced my receiver, which will probably also necessitate buying a separate phonograph pre-amp as well... A lot of changes for no discernable benefit, as someone who doesn't need surround sound.
Most of the real-world scenarios I've seen Bluetooth used in, for home audio, seemed like more of a hassle than anything. Those shitty "sound bar" style speakers still need a power cable anyway, since they aren't getting power directly from an amplifier. Either that, or you have to start worrying about batteries. We were never able to get the subwoofer to pair to the system at all... Im willing to consider it was just one bad product, but making the product more complex makes more points of failure, so it's not totally unrelated to the decision to go with Bluetooth.
I agree with other posters here that I don't think it was ever truly alive. I used it on my systems but then I'm the tech of the family (and the extended family) and knew how the stuff all worked and that included friends and family that were big into music too. I think I'm the only one that actually used the XBox 360 toslink adapter!
But, still, even with the convenience of one cable connections via HDMI (if they ever get all the kinks worked out) - there was something nostalgic geeky cool about connecting your components with light cables!
I have a PC that I've been using to run the entertainment center for many years, with tuners from SiliconDust, and run audio through a DTS receiver. Works great - the PC has Toslink out for the receiver and HDMI for the TV.
A couple of years ago I started using an Amazon TV, which of course is HDMI, so I bought a toslink switch since the receiver only has one toslink input, and used the output on the TV when I'm using the Amazon thing. It sounds great to my ears.
Tried using HDMI before, but of course there is no HDMI output on the receiver. Plug in HDMI for audio, and the best output available is component. It works for some stuff, but degrades because ... HDCP! Of course. The Amazon TV thing won't play to the TV using that at all.
So I'll keep my toslink, TYVM!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Hey it's up to you what parameters to set but if one of the parameters is: "I'm not buying new equipment" even cheap ones then you've sort of pigeonholed yourself. I'm not really sure what you mean by "awful DRM crap" as both Firestick and Chromecast work perfectly fine for use case presented above. I'm also not sure what you mean by "more than one device" as a cable doesn't plug into more than one device at a time whereas you can stream into from multiple devices to multiple devices with multiple Chromecasts and Firesticks. If multichannel isn't as important, there's always Bluetooth transmitter/receivers for about $20 each way.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Would mirroring or cloning the display avoid that?
Who ordered that?
Here in the UK, we have BT Openreach. Millibits/second are what we are used to. Smoke signals would probably be an improvement apart from the pollution levels.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Cost isn't really a factor at the low tech end where TOS cable exists. Like TFS says, it's mainly cheap plastic and losses over 6 or 15 feet are insignificant. Where fiber really shines is for isolation.
And if you think fiber is more fragile, you haven't experienced the despair of broken HDMI cables and plugs.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah well my 5.1 setup sounds absolutely beautiful over optical. Much better than dealing with the ground hum on 6x 3.5mm cables from two devices. Optical 4 life!!!
And do i want to send HDMI audio to my 2Watt projector speaker? no, no i do not.
Sure if you are some rich guy who has $500 bucks to drop on a new receiver everytime some new cable comes out, by all means "upgrade". My yamaha receivers are only 10 and 20 years old respectively, both work fine, neither has HDMI. And thats good, because i dont want my receiver controlling video! that would obsolete it way too fast. For instance, the s-vhs video inputs on my 90s yamaha receiver. useless.
So no, mr cloud, my receiver doesnt sound bad. it Does DTS for my living room and sounds fantastic. Of course i am not a pretentious audiophile.... i live in the real world.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
and you'll see nasty looking barely square waves
Them are some ugly-lookin' zeros an' ones, to be sure...
You're claiming TOSLINK has worse jitter than HDMI??! :)
When compared to copper cables. I had my PS2 hooked up to AV receiver, and boy, it was twice as loud than RCA/cinch plugs. And the sound fidelity was also awesome. Crispiest sound I have ever heard up to this day.
"I'm not buying new equipment" even cheap ones
My receiver was $350 back in 2012. It sounds and works great. Not interested in spending that kind of money for a connector.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "awful DRM crap" as both Firestick and Chromecast work perfectly fine for use case presented above.
No, they do not. Connecting the Amazon FireTV to the receiver gives me sound just fine, but the component output won't play on the TV. Apparently there is a way to get it to downgrade to SD and see it, but what's the point in doing that?
I'm also not sure what you mean by "more than one device" as a cable doesn't plug into more than one device at a time whereas you can stream into from multiple devices to multiple devices with multiple Chromecasts and Firesticks.
I have a device with HDMI output. I want video on the TV and audio on the receiver. Get it?
The way I do that now is the HDMI is plugged into the TV, and the toslink output on the TV goes to the receiver for surround sound. Works great, and that's why I'll be keeping my toslink.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the convenience and progression of other standards killed it?
Newer standards like the latest HDMI or USB Type-C, plus older ones like DisplayPort are making the whole video+audio thing a one cable matter, there's not a whole lot of incentive to go beyond that.
I also have to say that standardization and how different types of media used the Dolby standards and stuff like THX and whatnot were pretty inconsistent. This is one of the things that made me give up the bother.
I guess the newer soundbars that can do some really advanced and neat stuff regarding surround sound might be the final nail to the coffin, but optical audio has been dying for quite a while now. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it never quite caught on in a mainstream sense... I dunno many people who uses it. Then again, a whole ton of people I know just uses plain TV speakers, or crappy generic pair of speakers for computers.
I have some really old Logitech 5.1 speakers that I used Toslink/spdif for quite a while... it made sense back in a time you either used that or 3/4 different analog audio cables for the job. This was back some 15 years ago.
Problem is that a whole lot of content that was supposed to be Dolby Digital and THX certified came with all sorts of different levels for center channel and subwoofer, I'd often have to tweak it individually, and at some point it started bothering me so much that I ended up just skipping the whole deal and turning on the double stereo setting and leaving it at that (it uses plain regular stereo sound and replicates the same thing for the front and back speaker set). Also a problem that everytime you wanted to watch regular content without DD and THX you had to switch the profile manually.. perhaps newer speaker sets does this automatically. But on my set the result is a mutting of dialogues and overall audio weirdness that was just irritating.
It was certainly worth for a few stuff, but just doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore. Harder and more expensive to get working switchers and extenders, you have to worry a whole lot more on installation, it's less flexible and you can't tuck it around some corners without risking to break the cable, and then the advantage on interference and whatnot is just not quite there anymore. Newer standards are pretty shielded, hiss and hums will most likely only bother audiophiles.
Not only that, but wireless transmission advanced quite a bit too. Back then it was either impossible or cost prohibitive to get a device to transmit audio+video wirelessly. It's still not exactly cheap these days, but it's reasonable enough.
A pitty though. Because another huge issue is simply stagnation. The standard never changed or evolved much.
Not sure about HDMI, but definitely it's the worst of any possible way to carry an S/PDIF signal.
Not that it matters, HDMI doesn't carry S/PDIF and is externally clocked anyway so jittering of the digital audio signal would have no effect on performance.
Optical: expensive jacks, cheap cable, decisive worx/dontworx.
You've clearly never worked with 2000' of 62.5 OM1 originally designed for 10 Mbit over fiber trying to push Gigabit over fiber with LX optics and mode-conditioning cables...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Worst case if you get a new TV that doesn't have optical out anymore, you can get a cheap adapter that converts ARC to optical.
https://www.amzn.com/dp/B06XHY4N78/
My receiver was $350 back in 2012. It sounds and works great. Not interested in spending that kind of money for a connector.
To be clear, you're not willing to spend any amount of money to fix the problem or you're not interested in replacing your receiver for any amount of money?
No, they do not. Connecting the Amazon FireTV to the receiver gives me sound just fine, but the component output won't play on the TV. Apparently there is a way to get it to downgrade to SD and see it, but what's the point in doing that?
So to clarify your specific parameters as opposed to the OP's problem. Why do you need component video? Not sure what you mean because a FireStick does not have component video. If you need component video is an HDMI to Component adapter suitable?
I have a device with HDMI output. I want video on the TV and audio on the receiver. Get it? The way I do that now is the HDMI is plugged into the TV, and the toslink output on the TV goes to the receiver for surround sound. Works great, and that's why I'll be keeping my toslink.
And why can't you plug the HDMI to the receiver and then HDMI to the TV? Seems like you have a very specific setup but haven't detailed all the parameters you require. For example are you saying that your receiver has no HDMI and you don't want to spend any money on a new receiver?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Digital optical is utterly inferior to HDMI Audio.
Wait... why are we comparing a transmission medium with a specific protocol?
HDMI Audio is a specific protocol. Digital optical is a medium --- and with the right transceivers, connectors, and transmission media can be used for 10-Gigabit Ethernet which can be used to send anything, so no... HDMI is not an inherently superior system, and I don't see Digital optical data transmission going away anytime soon, either.
My friend in UK tells me that TalkTalk is experimenting with TCP/IP over bongo drums.
I'm pretty sure this is incorrect and that it does support only audio. My family has old audio receiver that takes HDMI input (multiple HDMI inputs actually), but can't output HDMI video, even though it has an HDMI out port. I set it up with TOSLINK because I couldn't figure out how to send just the video the TV and just the audio to the receiver (this was before ARC was around).
I have a few pieces of audio equipment in my house that either take analog or Toslink. I will always pick Toslink over analog. Particularly for long runs. Long runs over analog is the domain of the utterly stupid. I don't need expensive Monster Toslink cables. I buy mine from eBay. These things are dirt cheap.
And why can't you plug the HDMI to the receiver and then HDMI to the TV?
My receiver doesn't have HDMI output, that's why. I guess I didn't make that clear in this post.
For example are you saying that your receiver has no HDMI and you don't want to spend any money on a new receiver?
It has no HDMI output, and, yes, I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a new receiver.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I don't think it would be extra cost. A TV is already chock-a-block full of audio processing circuitry - encoding to HDMI or whatever is going to be just another task added to that circuitry. If it does cost extra, it is likely a few pennies. More is probably saved by removing the TOSLINK emitter, driver circuitry, and jack .
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It doesn't really have anything to do with the physical transport. The main disadvantage in terms of being able to enhance the standard to carry additional codecs or run at a faster datarate is that optical is unidirectional so there is no ability for two devices to negotiate a compatible operating mode when faced with the increasing problem of digital codec proliferation.
If the low level datastream has some provision for being able for a transmitter to be able to advertise an enhanced protocol capability without breaking existing devices then the door opens for a lot of stuff including half-duplex or alternate wavelength sink-to-source communication. However such futureproofing is rarely built into these simple low level protocol negotiations, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.
More importantly, audio over Bluetooth sounds like shit compared to cables. Bluetooth just has no bandwidth, and you get 64-96k quality sound, which is worse than a shitty mp3
What kind of video inputs and outputs does your receiver have? I assume you have component out to your TV. What about video inputs? Any component in?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
"The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it. "
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Wouldn't a simple HDMI splitter solve your problem?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Optical fibres are great for transatlantic data transfer. For getting data from coast to cost. But for local installations, they are just not cost effective. Splicing fibre is too expensive, transceivers are too expensive. 100Mbit Ethernet was often over fibre, but now everything is twisted pair, up to 10Gbit. HDMI is twisted pair. DisplayPort is. Coax and fibre are dead.
Bluetooth gained momentum because it's convenient rather than performing well. Push a button and you're connected, also no cable required. Quality sucks though.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Wouldn't a simple HDMI splitter solve your problem?
Actually when I looked before, there wasn't such a thing as an HDMI splitter that was HDCP compliant, but I did a search just now and there are plenty available. Thanks, I'll have to try one of those.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
What kind of video inputs and outputs does your receiver have? I assume you have component out to your TV. What about video inputs? Any component in?
It has component in and out, HDMI with component out, optical input and digital coax input, as well as the SD composite and SVideo output.
Someone else pointed out that I could use an HDMI splitter, and I've found that they are now available that are HDCP compliant, so I'm probably going to give that a try. Not sure if it will give me any better sound, but they're cheap so it's worth a shot.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Toslink is being supplanted by HDMI and Bluetooth...
Supplanted maybe, but superseded, no. As many have pointed out, HDMI does not support audio-only in any acceptable way, and basically forces you to put video equipment in the path, and get tormented by crappy/complex/fragile copyright crypto. Fortunately, there is an easy solution: USB digital out dongles are cheap and readily available, for basically whatever format you need.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's physically impossible to put good speakers into a flatpanel TV so why should that be a surprise? Then again I think 99.9% of soundbars also sound like crap which is why I have 40" tall tower speakers with 1", 4.5", 8" and 10" drivers =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Toslink has tremendous potential, especially with better codecs.
It doesn't need better CODECs, the software layer is literally S/PDIF. The alternative to it is just S/PDIF with copper wiring.
The reason that "light pipes" (what the pro-audio customers consistently insist on calling them) are on the out is that they're expensive and have no advantages. Audio isn't run directly over wires for long distances; they already tunnel it on ethernet for that. That's what those "directional" ethernet cables are for; the shielding is lifted from the plug at one end, make the ground path on the shielding directional. That way when the endpoints have different ground potentials you don't end up with a ground loop. (combined with Power Over Ethernet and Phantom Power over coax, the musician can end up getting cooked if there is a ground loop, or one of the roadies)
So there is no reason for fiber. It is just not a useful technology; the wire lengths aren't long enough to create noticeable noise from resistive heating, and the external noise sources are easily filtered with even pseudo-differential transmission.
The audio CODEC is exactly the same because the "light pipe" only transmits digital data. The CODEC is the part that coverts between analog and digital, and is the same. That's another reason copper is preferred; they can use the same standard AES cables for both analog differential and digital data. With the "light pipe" you still need the AES cables for the analog inputs. It is just an extra set of cables that are more expensive, more fragile, have the same (lack of) noise.
I don't think it would be extra cost.
You could simply look in an audio catalog (or on that interweb thing) and see what the difference in price is between an HDMI cable and a TOSLINK cable.
Spoiler: Generic 6' HDMI cable is <$2, Generic 6' TOSLINK >$5. And if you step on that TOSLINK cable one time, it might not work anymore.
Name brands, and all the supporting parts on devices, have similar price differences; and the AES input will be mandatory, so you're simply adding the TOSLINK price to the base price!
The "audio processing" circuitry is exactly the same price, because it doesn't use different audio circuitry. It is just the physical layer that is different. Also remember, the HDMI circuitry is still going to be there on a TV for video; TOSLINK is only for audio. But even in an audio-only device, the encoder chips used are exactly the same. If you offered only TOSLINK it would cost more than offering only HDMI, or only AES. Actually you could offer HDMI and AES for less than offering only TOSLINK; but that doesn't actually work. The customers who use TOSLINK tend to actually be using AES with more of their equipment; you can't include only TOSLINK, that is a high end feature and it is expected you'd also have AES and probably also HDMI. So the costs only ever add up. If there was even one advantage of TOSLINK over AES or HDMI, then it would have some chance of surviving.
I couldn't figure out how to send just the video the TV and just the audio to the receiver
You don't, you send the same signal to both and the audio receiver ignores the video stream, and you turn off the audio on the TV.
TOSLINK doesn't support any routing or anything, so if that made the setup work then ARC wouldn't have really mattered anyways. Your problem was probably that you only had one HDMI out on the source and just needed a splitter.
He does address cable pricing in the first half of his message. However, if you had held off replying at that point and continued reading he also addresses TV component price.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I still use the older types and newest HDMI.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
What about the HDMI to Component adapter I linked above? It's about $50.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Mod parent up. Toslink's inherent jitter problem means that it is a complete failure for anyone who cares about audio quality. And those are the only people that would bother paying extra for optical equipment vs regular old copper wire.
Try passing a 4k signal through a receiver with only HDMI 1.2 support so the receiver can get the audio, then tell me "compatibility hasn't really changed". It's people who bought their audio equipment before the current version of HDMI even existed, but who wish to use the features of the current version, who need an audio-only return path, separate from HDMI, so they don't have to upgrade their receiver every time a new version of HDMI comes out and they wish to use it. The audio-only connection allows them to remove the audio receiver from the video path, where it really doesn't belong in the first fucking place.
Follow?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Now show me a modern, HDMI-equipped receiver that sounds anywhere as near as good as my circa 1998 NAD T750.
I see you got burned by being a surround sound early adopter, but I bet you can easily find a modern receiver that's just as good as that one.
My receiver doesn't have HDMI output, that's why. I guess I didn't make that clear in this post.
HDMI ARC is the solution. In that scenario you hook your playback device directly to one of the displays HDMI ports and then hook the Display to the receiver via the displays HDMI ARC port.
Instead of:
You have:
Of course if you have a modern receiver it is usually
Perhaps I should have said "digital optical audio" but are you being intentionally obtuse?
In this case the optical MEDIUM limits the QUALITY and KIND of the audio sent over it. Yeah there's big data with their optical links but we're talking about TOSLINK optical AUDIO here, not DATA
Or, we need the standard to allow pass-through of signals the device doesn't understand (and pass through the EDID of the TV for capabilities) - the audio portion of the standard doesn't have to change. USB 1.1 devices work fine on a USB 3.1 bus.
ARC mostly solves this in a different way, because the TV handles input switching and only sends audio to the receiver - provided that all of your devices requiring the higher standard are connected directly to the TV.
Now show me a modern, HDMI-equipped receiver that sounds anywhere as near as good as my circa 1998 NAD T750.
I see you got burned by being a surround sound early adopter, but I bet you can easily find a modern receiver that's just as good as that one.
Believe me, I've tried to source a replacement for years. I would love to get a system with a microphone to balance the surrounds. Everything that gets good reviews on audio quality (Onkyo, Polk, Yamaha) also has extreme reliability problems (like, people getting repaired 4-5 times under warranty, and then "final" death shortly after the warranty expires).
That's a pretty new implementation, and doesn't work everywhere. My TV is 5 years old and doesn't support ARC, not sure many of them did back then. What is Audio Return Channel?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So not S/PDIF, and non standard. Why do you even bother posting?
Also provided that your TV and receiver both support ARC. A surprising many still do not.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Neither my TV nor my receiver does. You can only fix problems like that going forward. A lot of 4K blu-ray players have 2 HDMI outputs - one for the TV and one for the receiver. This is not a good way to handle it. ARC is its own separate protocol negotiation, so I hope by the time I need a new receiver, they'll have it to a point that there is some degree of forward compatibility.
I got lucky and got HDMI 1.4a support 7 years ago, so I haven't had any needs change. I'm still looking for a passive 3DTV, but the whole market disappeared while I waited for the specs I wanted.
In my case, when I replace my receiver I'll actually want to re-purpose the old one. Probably for audio only. I'm hoping by then that ARC
You seem to have dropped some of your post...
When you made that 7 years claim, I looked it up... HDMI 1.4a has been out for 8 years? Why is there still so much HDMI 1.2 gear not only still on the market, but still being released?!?!?!
This is why TOSLINK is still around.
At any rate, I have no dog in this race. Similar to your quest for a 3DTV, the receivers I wanted have dropped off the market. In my case, it happened while I was transitioning from being a penniless twit to having money to throw at this, and I haven't had time to research the market and figure out what I want to get instead.
Off hand, do you know of any decent 7.1 receivers currently on the market that will properly downmix to 5.1 or 3.1, rather than just dropping those channels if I don't have speakers on them? My setup right now is 3.1 and I'd have to talk the wife into 5.1 in this apartment (she hates having speakers placed around); 7.1 is a no-go here, but we aren't gonna live in this place forever, so that's temporary. I want a receiver that will work for me now, but can also come with me when I move to a place where a 7.1 setup is feasible. ARC with CEC would be nice; I honestly don't know if my TV has ARC support, but it does do CEC quite nicely and, well, coming up on 6 years old it's probably the next thing I'm replacing. The ability to stream Pandora natively would be a plus, but not a deal breaker if not present, though bluetooth with apt-x and AAC support is more or less a must.
I'm not asking you to do my research for me, but if you already know of something that fits that bill it would be greatly appreciated.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
No way to go back and edit - but I said what I wanted to say earlier in the post and forgot I originally started it further down. I got a refurb Pioneer VSX-520-K for just over $200 back then. It's a 5.1 with DTS-MA and TrueHD support. The VSX-521-K had ARC.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about dropping the other two speakers off of 7.1. It's not like they would have different audio, just different positioning than the other rear speakers. As long as you have rear channel audio I can't imagine you'd lose anything of value from the other two (if you don't have the speakers anyway). And if you don't have 5.1 yet, you'll have to realize that rear speakers are a very rarely used effect anyway. 3.1 is 90% of the benefit - it's all about that good center channel (and a sub to a lesser extent). Which is something I didn't realize until I bought my first good center channel speaker.
I'm a real cheapskate in this space. I started with a DVD Home Theater-in-a-box over 10 years ago and the only external input was stereo RCA (which did at least handle Pro-Logic II downmix). Later, I bought the Pioneer receiver and a powered subwoofer and kept all my cheap speakers to start (and no - they were the wrong impedence - too low - and I'm glad I never fried the receiver). I replaced two-by-two, after I bought the center channel about a year later. I didn't replace my rear speakers with good ones until just a few years ago.
I still see refurb and overstock VSX-series units floating around - some with HDMI 2.0. They're all discontinued, I think. I don't have anything to recommend, but Onkyo and Pioneer seem to be the better priced for what you get.
Huge issue with bluetooth and video... out of sync audio. Bluetooth is laggy. Not an issue if you are just listening to music but the latency issue crops up frequently with video.
NRRPT/RCT
These cables, aka. the concept of light used to transfer data, are till used in huge, in networking and super-computer cabling. So yeah, it maybe dead for audio(toslink), but the principle still lives on (widely) in the computing/networking world!
True, but some of us still own receivers that don't support HDMI, but do support Toslink and S/PDIF.
I run HDMI to my screen and then feed the audio out to my receiver using a Toslink connection.
Onkyo and Pioneer are the two brands I look at first, thank you for confirming the merit to my bias. Yamaha is in the running as well, but I'm not as much of a fan of their consumer gear as I am of their pro and prosumer stuff. The use case for 5.1 and 7.1 is more so I can hear my buddy coming up behind me in CoD, but I do also have a few Blu-Rays where it's actually used quite effectively, so I don't want to discount it right out of the gate.
I looked at a great many HTIB solutions but they all seemed to have the same input limitation you mentioned, so I never bought. Looking back, now I wish I had.
Thanks again for confirming that I'm at least looking in the right direction, and for the tip about the 521 vs 520.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
"The standard never got a foothold in professional audio." That's why I'm using so many ADAT optical connections, probably... :rolleyes: It has been used and it is still used in professional audio a LOT. One ADAT Optical cable is able to carry 8 channels of audio at 48kHz/24bit. Very handy. Although there is quite a few standards that are going to replace it in the years to come, like MADI and various network audio protocols. These new protocols are great and I really love them, but ADAT optical is still very, very popular.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
I have a record player, what's your point? The term foothold implies widespread adoption and continued development. ADAT over TOSLINK is not one of those cases. Compared to AES3 in the professional world it's rarer than rockinghorse poo, and where it is implemented it is often done so with separate master word clocks (not optical) to get around the flaws in the proprietary standard.
Yup. The laptop won't display, and Roku media centers will not display anything if the HDCP handshaking goes wrong. I got around that by hooking up an HDMI Detective which had my projector's EDID saved to it (the problem with my old setup was that my HDMI switcher didn't support HDCP very well).
I just wanted to point out that audio over optical is still very much alive in the pro audio world, in a different, ADAT format. That's all. I work for professional studios as a tech and it's much more present than AES. ADAT connection also uses wordclock for synchronisation. Wordclock works independently of the digital connection you use. Although ADAT sends a digital sync signal over the optical cable, it can be unreliable at times, if you have 4 preamps with ADAT connections connected to your audio interface [32 channels of audio], for instance. One preamp could work just fine without WC, possibly even two. I always connect WC, if possible, just to get a cleaner digital audio, though. Speaking of consumer audio, I wasn't aware of the TOSLINK optical connection dying. All of the PC motherboards still have it and not many have coaxial SPDIF connection. Why is that then? However, audio over HDMI must be the most popular solution at the moment and it is the most convenient for the regular PC user, but some people still like to have pristine audio quality, those who have hi-fi systems and most of the amplifiers these days still have both SPDIF and TOSLINK inputs. Far, far better than connecting the cable from the PC analogue outputs to the amp.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti