Digital Optical Audio vs RCA?

[Trojan Horse]

Hey there guys,

today my question is;

what is the best sound input/output cable?

basically:

Digital Optical Audio
vs
RCA (White and yellow cables for my xbox 360)​

I'm going to be using this on my home cinema system (sony dav-lf1) to connect to my xbox 360. it's an old cinema system, so it won't do HDMI, + I can't use hdmi anyway (tv wall mounted, too lazy) and I want to know what will provide the best sound?

I would prefer to use the digi optical audio as the lead will be closer and smaller ( less mess) and that i've read it has better audio.

 

[EarthDog]

Optical...... hands down.

 

[bmwbaxter]

Optical!

 

[Trojan Horse]

Awesome.
Could anybody justify that for me though? (even though I just ordered some off amazon for like £2 i would like to know why it is better)

oh and one question to anybody reading this; i've ballsed it up, and i need to swap my left and right speakers over without physically swapping them, is that possible?

 

[EarthDog]

Digital vs analog signal. Night, meet day.

Swap the RCA cables around.

 

[Trojan Horse]

Digital vs analog signal. Night, meet day.

Swap the RCA cables around.

? what do you mean, swap em' around?

 

[EarthDog]

Meaning the one in the L, put it in the R, and the one for R, put it in L.

 

[Trojan Horse]

Digital vs analog signal. Night, meet day.

Swap the RCA cables around.

Meaning the one in the L, put it in the R, and the one for R, put it in L.

I don't think that's possible with a digital optical cable... + the home cinema system is wireless so i can't swap the cables around, because the only thing that connects to the speakers is the ir transmitter

 

[bmwbaxter]

Then why do you need to swap your speakers? The optical will have it going to the correct speakers.

 

[Trojan Horse]

Then why do you need to swap your speakers? The optical will have it going to the correct speakers.

i put the left speaker on the right hand side of my room, mainly because of how far the mains power supply is, and the right speaker on the left hand side of my room

 

[EarthDog]

Wait, if the speakers are wireless outside of the IR transm... why dont you just swap the speakers around?

EDIT: I see you have power connected as well. Sorry, extension cord is your best answer.

 

[bmwbaxter]

+1 to extension cord being your best bet.

 

[mjw21a]

Alternately you can swap the sound channels in the drivers

 

[bmwbaxter]

Alternately you can swap the sound channels in the drivers

don't think that will help with his xbox... don't think i ever came across such an option in mine.

 

[mjw21a]

Ah, sorry. Getting my discussions mixed up. Ignore that post.

 

[Trojan Horse]

Wait, if the speakers are wireless outside of the IR transm... why dont you just swap the speakers around?

EDIT: I see you have power connected as well. Sorry, extension cord is your best answer.

That's going to be really tricky to do, but I'll try.

Oh, and I set this thing up ages ago so now I gotta' download the manuals. lol

+ one more problem... the right hand audio has completely swapped with the left hand audio, and vice versa. I forgot how I ended up doing this but.. anyway I can swap the entire channels around?

 

[oqnx]

There is no definitive answer.

Optical audio will sound inferior if the d/a converter in your receiver is of a lower quality than the converter integrated into the xbox. Optical will also sound inferior if you take your optical signal from the back of the television.

Anyway, if you want to do hdmi some time in the future, there is something called the xbox 360 sound dongle which plugs into the standard definition port on the xbox and gives you an optical connection, but it has a slimmer plug so you can fit both the dongle and hdmi at the same time.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-Audio-Dongle-Adapter-Cable/dp/B002WIG4LW

 

[EarthDog]

+ one more problem... the right hand audio has completely swapped with the left hand audio, and vice versa. I forgot how I ended up doing this but.. anyway I can swap the entire channels around?

So you dont have a problem is what that means.

 

[Trojan Horse]

So you dont have a problem is what that means.

Oh, just realised what I said, I had meant to say that Could I swap around the audio channels, if it's wireless? I literally can not physically swap them, without moving everything in my room , and then changing it's layout to make way for this.

 

[EarthDog]

That question you asked already iirc, and was answered with a not sure...

I have Xfi and I dont think i can swap channels like that. I would imagine with lesser audio solutions lie onboard, you wouldnt be able to? Not sure.. .sorry.