Cable Help

[jer446]

I was wondering if anyone has seen something like this. I know it is out there, because i am pretty sure I myself have seen them.
Basically, I am rewiring my home theater system because my dad never wired it right. I have two components that need to go to my receiver- my dvd player and my cable box. Both have digital coax for sound. The problem is, my receiver only has one, and three opticals. (toslink) So is there a digital coax- optical converter? Something cheap! What are your experiences with them?
I just want to get what i paid for out of the system. My dad has had the dvd player hooked up through stereo all this time, so I want to change it to the 5.1

I am getting the harmony 1000 remote, so i will prgram everything, which is why i do not think a switcher would work.

 

[Fearless Leader]

http://www.taligentx.com/projects/opticalconverter/ want to build one?
http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=504&sku=40018 would be if you wanted to buy one.

In theory It should be the same sounding as just the coaxial because it is the same digital information running through the wires.

 

[jer446]

i could build it myself.. its just not worth the time.. I have seen that box for about 20 bucks online.. i guess ill buy it there..

 

[Fearless Leader]

they should be all the same in quality. It's the same data just over different wires. A 200 dollar one should do they same as that one.

 

[Makosuke]

I bought a cheap converter that is probably identical hardware with a different brand decal to the one linked above. I got it to convert the coax digital output on a DAT deck to optical for the input on my G5 tower. Worked perfectly as far as I could tell. The only reason I can see a converter like that might be an issue is if it took some perceptible amount of time to do the conversion, in which case the sound would lag the picture. With the way I used mine I can't say if this is the case.

It's funny, I've heard claims that one or the other "sounds" better, which makes absolutely no sense at all to me--if it's a digital signal, it shouldn't matter in the slightest how it gets from A to B. Is there some reason this might acutally be true, or is it in the same category as audiophiles who are convinced that their $1000 AC power cord makes the music sound better than a $500 one (or a $2 thrift-store special, for that matter)?

On a wildly unrelated note, I do prefer optical to coax, but that's mainly because for some reason my audio system makes a loud "pop" when it first picks up a digital coax signal, while the pop is a quiet "tick" with optical.