digital coax or optical

[evor1]

is one or the other better for hooking up my logitech z5500s? i have the audigy nx and it has optical out and spdif out...spdif out is for digital coax right?

[JigPu]

SPDIF should be the coax as you say. As far as quality, there should be no difference since the digital signal won't be degraded, though SPDIF should be cheaper and probably more rugged as well.

Disclaimer: I haven't used digital-outs before, so I could be wrong ;)
JigPu

[bchur83]

SPDIF is both a standard for Optical and Coax Digital Outputs. I personally use Optical cables, since there isn't any electrical connection to cause interference. Coax has a higher theroetical bandwidth capability, but the amount of data in digital audio wont max out the bandwidth of an Optical Cable.