Any one know wht optical cables havent migrated to car audio? You figure an optical cable wouldnt pick up any noise. I know Alpine made an optical cd changer back in the day. Maybe it has somthing to do with the optical cable being a digital signal vs an analog? So Im assuming you would then need a d/a converter in the amp. I dont know. What do you guys think?

 

Some cars come that way OEM. Those people are very disappointed because they're stuck with the factory stereo.

 

its expensive as hell to produce, and people probably wouldn't buy it because of its cost. its probably all because of someone off in corporate america

 

i think optical cables are more for 5.1 sound right ? well for home theaters at least thats what they are for. i can only see using them if you want true 5.1 sound in your ride.

 

Optical cables are a bitch to deal with...IMO. It's not like regular speaker wires where you can cut the length you want.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NVturbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Optical cables are a bitch to deal with...IMO. It's not like regular speaker wires where you can cut the length you want.</TD></TR></TABLE>

but you dont usually cut your RCA's to length do you? just buy the right size. One reason i think it hasnt migrated is because of the fact that all of a sudden you need a processor or DAC's in the amps. Its also not really necessary because we're still only dealing with 2 channel music. when car audio goes the way of multichannel i can see it becoming more common. Personally i'd love to see digital output from the CD player because then you have your choice of which DAC you wish to pair it up with and then you can have much higher upsampling rates.

 

As it's been pointed out - nothing in car audio is free....

Optical works great, but that means you need a DAC down stream of the headunit. Now if crossover in the digital domain, then you need a dac/channel - gettin fun yet? On top of that , you will need a way to control the output of those dacs - so now you are talking exterior volume control.

Also keep in mind that MOST headunits don't convert am/fm stream into digital. This means you still have to run an analog line anyway...

 

The only reason I can think of that digital hasn't made it to car audio is cost. Analog components are cheap. People want dirt cheap gear so you get low tech.

You can run the volume controls down the fiber also, the entire protocol gets sent down the fiber. The bandwidth it takes to send audio, DSP and protocol overhead is next to nothing compared to what fiber can handle. This can all be handled by the DAC. Fiber in my opinion is far superior to RCA cables. I ran fiber when I had a stereo in my car. It is completely immune to noise. And has an almost unlimited bandwidth. One fiber can handle all of the information of mutiple RCA cables.

But then what happens to all the snake oil salesmen trying to sell you magic RCA cables? I guess the same could be done with fiber *shrug*. No way in hell you could tell the difference from one fiber to the next.

 

Arent all the new Mercedes and Porches 01 up running on optical cables at least from deck to amp.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxxtreme &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The only reason I can think of that digital hasn't made it to car audio is cost. Analog components are cheap. People want dirt cheap gear so you get low tech.

You can run the volume controls down the fiber also, the entire protocol gets sent down the fiber. The bandwidth it takes to send audio, DSP and protocol overhead is next to nothing compared to what fiber can handle. This can all be handled by the DAC. Fiber in my opinion is far superior to RCA cables. I ran fiber when I had a stereo in my car. It is completely immune to noise. And has an almost unlimited bandwidth. One fiber can handle all of the information of mutiple RCA cables.

But then what happens to all the snake oil salesmen trying to sell you magic RCA cables? I guess the same could be done with fiber *shrug*. No way in hell you could tell the difference from one fiber to the next.</TD></TR></TABLE>

this is a good point - I guess I should have said that there are not any fiber out car audio heads that I know that can send any protocol for controlling the output of the DAC's from the head. The only system that MAY work this way is the P9, but to my knowledge it requires a second cable...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

this is a good point - I guess I should have said that there are not any fiber out car audio heads that I know that can send any protocol for controlling the output of the DAC's from the head. The only system that MAY work this way is the P9, but to my knowledge it requires a second cable...</TD></TR></TABLE>
Actually I have an old sony MDX900 that is pure digital, except for the radio. Which as you mentioned requires an extra set of rca cables. They did have an slink cable attached also but i'm not quite sure if volume contols was sent down that. my understanding was just controls for cd changer and communication with DSP processor. Dont know for sure though.