What Is SPDIF Optical Sound Output And What Is It For - HardwarEsfera

The output of SPDIF optical sound o S/PDIF has generally been little used by the general public. Only the most audiophiles give it the attention it deserves, but if you are interested in a better sound quality whether it's for the gaming or home theater experience, you're interested in how this cable works.

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Table of Contents

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• Definition of SPDIF
• How to get better sound quality
• SPDIF in the domestic market
• Sales and drawbacks of SPDIF
  • Advantages
  • Disadvantages
• The reason for the deprecation of S / PDIF

Definition of SPDIF

The acronym "S/PDIF" stands for Sony / Philips Digital Interface Format, Sony and Phillips Digital Interface Format, since they are the ones who have rights to this sound output. In international terms, it is known by its IEC 958 type 95 code. SPDIF is a hardware-level protocol for the transmission of PCM-modulated digital audio signals between stereophonic devices and components, so that digital sound is sent direct to a receiver without going through a process of analogousness and another of digitization with what they avoid that it loses quality.

S / PDIF is a version of the standard AES / EBU protocol. It has been adapted for use in commercial applications, with some differences that make it less expensive to produce the final components and more accessible to home users.

Simply put, SPDIF is a fiber optic cable that allows you to connect one digital sound source to another without losing quality in between. It is a connection that is little used, and is highly undervalued by users. But that does not mean that a home user can take advantage of it despite the fact that it is almost in disuse.

How to get better sound quality

La coaxial sound output SPDIF allows to have a higher sound quality coming from the original source. This is achieved by avoiding that the sound has to be converted from digital to analog sound to pass through a jack cable, to another digital device that has to convert analog to digital sound. This in a home theater stereo works well, since less information is lost in each digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital sound conversion.

Also good for sound experts in concert solos and more high-end sound kits. As sound quality is important, whenever possible try to use this connection if the source is digital instead of running it through the jack cables to the sound interface.

But this does not mean that there is S / PDIF adapters to other connectors. For ease of use, there are jack connectors for mixing consoles, minijack for small domestic equipment, and even XLR for professional mixing consoles. Some of these converters lead to a loss of quality because an analogization is generated from the sound source to the receiver and subsequently a digitization with which a loss of quality can be seen, but they are useful if we do not have receivers.

SPDIF in the domestic market

We have mentioned that it is a relatively unused connection, but that does not mean that if we know how it works and we have the equipment, we can use it. Many televisions or sound or multimedia devices have an optical sound output, which is the SPDIF connection. Since today's flat-panel TVs tend to skimp on speaker quality to make themselves flatter and more affordable, their sound quality becomes poor and volume is low.

Sound bars have become quite popular to solve this problem for flat televisions. Although many soundbars are simply left with a minijack connection to connect through the headphone port. We must check in the box if the indications of the sound bar include optical sound input. If so, we will be in luck and we will simply have to buy said cable.

In the case of current consoles, neither Nintendo Switch, nor Xbox series S nor PlayStation 5 have optical sound output. Xbox series X, PlayStation 4, and various Xbox One models do. It is possible that future PlayStation 5 models may include an optical audio output.

For PC users, many motherboards have such an audio output for connecting speakers and sound equipment. If you don't have one, we can buy one. sound card with S/PDIF input and output and connect it to the motherboard in order to have the possibility of having better quality audio and with less delay for when we watch movies, series or play video games where the reaction speed and sound quality can give us certain possibilities of advantage.

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Sales and drawbacks of SPDIF

Advantages

• An better sound quality by not having to convert the sound into analog and reconvert it to digital sound, with which less information and details are lost.
• Less delay. We already discussed it in the previous point, but since SPDIF requires fewer steps to convert sound from digital to analog and from analog to digital, fewer milliseconds are lost in the transfer.

Disadvantages

• If the S/PDIF cable is coaxial and not optical, it will be necessary for the cable to be of quality to have better sound quality.
• The best sound quality is difficult to verify. Because trained sound, clean original audio and high-quality sound equipment are needed so much, we may not appreciate the quality improvement. If the movie we are watching only has two audio channels, or if we are listening to music via streaming with a data saving mode or with a slow internet connection, we will hardly notice that it sounds better no matter how much S/PDIF cable we are using. .
• Requires the right equipment. If we use a low-quality sound system, be it a motherboard that is not up to par, an almost obsolete sound card or bad speakers, it will create a bottleneck and we will not be able to hear quality sound.
• It is in relative disuse. Since it is not a widely used connection in the home environment and is designed for the most demanding users, we may have some problems when it comes to finding televisions, motherboards, speakers, sound bars or home theater systems that do not have it. . We already commented that of the current consoles, only those of the last generation have it, and the most expensive version of the Xbox series, the Xbox series X. The PlayStation 5 does not have SPDIF output, although a future model could have it, and they never have had Nintendo consoles.

The reason for the deprecation of S / PDIF

S/PDIF has never been widespread among the mainstream public, and its use may not increase outside of audiophile circles. It is difficult to appreciate its quality if the original sound does not have a very high quality with which to appreciate the different nuances of sound. There is also the need for the right equipment so as not to bottleneck sound quality. For many users, the quality provided by the minijack ports, jack ports or HDMI is sufficient for their day-to-day audio needs, so this sound output is reserved for the most demanding and professional environments.

It is also that consoles and video games in general do not make use of high-quality audio. With the increase in bandwidth of HDMI y display portIn addition to the fact that games in general have compressed audio, you cannot appreciate that better sound quality.

Today, the best option is the consumption of multimedia audio from high-quality sources such as Blu Rays or Blu-Ray 4K, or movies and series without sound compression. There are also video games that have high-quality sound, but they are few, since it is not worth increasing the installation size of the game for a small portion of players.