Toslink Question ?

Digital cables that are damaged or of low quality can introduce jitter which does damage the quality of what you hear viz what your pre/pro gets to decode. I used toslink for many years but found that for the money, any S/PDIF 75-ohm coaxial cable that I utilized for the same tasks of moving Dolby Digital, DTS or simply PCM simply performed and sounded better. Don't get me wrong, there are great toslink cables on the market from AQ and many others. On balance, this could have little to do with Toslink versus S/PDIF as a media and go more towards the quality of the Toslink transmitter/receiver components utilized in most equipment. I always found (starting with my switch from several AQ Optilink-5 (a fantastic Toslink cable) to AQ Eagle Eye and then later to several other brands that S/PDIF just sounded better when all was said and done.

zero chance that a TOSlink fiber induces jitter. if anything you will see fiber induced dispersion (much different than jitter) and likely only over really long runs. +1 on Zephyr's comment on the electronics on the ends doing more.

Paulsax: Thanks for the correct on TOSlink fiber induced dispersion....One thing I'm confused about then is that like any other digital signal (incoming or outgoing), somewhere along this path there is a negative impact from jitter being introduced; would this then be only from the TOSLink transmitter/receiver devices and relevant attached electronics on either end of the connection? Could dispersion on the fiber contribute to this happening?