Why did optical cables never really take off among consumers...

Why did optical cables never really take off among consumers? I know fiber optic used for internet but besides TOSLink it's pretty dead for consumer devices. It's a shame digital audio got shoved into HDMI and as a result the S/PDIF standard was never updated to play anything beyond compressed 5.1.

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the goyims have to be patience and wait until Apple makes use of them

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Why do you need this when you have USB?

Fast optical transceivers are still pretty expensive. Toslink is an exception because it's slow as fuck - only 3mbit/s

Fiber optics unironically would be the superior "universal" option.
The only thing USB has going for itself is that charge can go through it to power certain devices.

surround sound setups and high end receivers are pretty niche to begin with. the fact that consumer soundbars are increasingly coming out with hdmi pass through is just another nail in the coffin.

>The only thing USB has going for itself is that charge can go through it to power certain devices.
If there's a cable anyway then what's the problem with having electrically conductive external layers that shield the fibers and double as power lines?

>Why did optical cables never really take off among consumers?
It did...
>TOSLink it's pretty dead for consumer devices.
Yeah, because everyone does audio over HDMI now, duh...
>It's a shame digital audio got shoved into HDMI and as a result the S/PDIF standard was never updated to play anything beyond compressed 5.1.
No it isn't.

I guess digital audio depends of data encoding and decoding and that’s one or two steps more for the consumer.
There’s always someone asking why their Xbox can’t play 7.1, or DTS, fuck my PC needs those hacked drivers to get 5.1 Dolby ¬through optical.

>electrically conductive external layers that shield the fibers and double as power lines?
Might as well have the audio over a wire then, the allure of an optical connection for audio is the complete galvanic isolation, adding power transmission removes that.

Truth be told though, galvanic isolation for a digital signal is stupid anyway and that's why HDMI is a better option than '80s TOSlink. (which was great in its day)

I'm pretty sure loads of people using soundbars use the optical connection.

a pretty typical soundbar setup is all the video components plugged into the tv with hdmi sending their audio through hdmi to the tv, with the soundbar being connected to the tv with the optical cable. so the tv acts as a receiver and all the audio gets shoved through hdmi cables at some point.
thats not the only soundbar setup, but its common enough to debunk the idea that optical cables never really took off among consumers.

I don't think so. I've only ever used it to go between my receiver and CD changer or years earlier to go between my PC and a DAT recorder but outside of that I've never really seen it used in the home.

Consumers have pets and children. Copper is more resistant to abuse.

Because it's expensive and very overkill for what's needed. USB 3.2 is more than enough for 99% of basically anything.

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Honestly puzzled that you claim it didn't "take off". My mother never had or used a TOSLink cable but she never had a high-end receiver. It's not like there's a need for it if you're using your TVs builtin speakers. I used a TOSLINK for my receiver from 2006 to last year when I replaced it with one that's got HDMI ports (uncompressed PCM vs AC3 over SPDIF, plus it was getting rather old anyway).

eeew soundbars. Why the hell those people don't just use their TVs built-in speakers is beyond me. Might as well hook up a clock radio.

Sure, it never become something as common as the 3.5mm audio jack but if you have/had equipment with a TOSLINK then your probably using it.

USB is dead for audio and that's sad. I have a pair of Bluedio bluetooth headphones that show up as a USB sound card device when I connect it to a computer. Every single amplifier and receiver with a USB port supports USB mass storage - like that's useful for anyone - and that's it. Then there are cheap $20 DAC/AMPs that act as USB sound cards. Why the hell this isn't a standard feature on a $500 or $1000 surround receiver yet is beyond me. I guess they make them with HDMI/televisions/BlueRay disc players in mind.

Fragile and expensive. Terminating fiber is a pain in the ass. Long runs aren't realistic. Just using thicker gauge copper like hdmi gets you all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.

In the first place surround sound never gained widespread adoption because it depended too much on consumer configuration of the different channels which is a giant pain in the ass for most people. The popularity of sound bars shows people just want to plug and play.

That's because apt-x is a thing now you mong.

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Interesting, the highest bitrate file I have is 3355kbps (24 bit/96KHz FLAC) so even USB 2.0 should be sufficient. Wonder why more recievers don't have USB support for anything besides mp3s.

there was no USB connections on CD players, DAT recorders, or anything else of the sort back in the 90's. Back then TOSLink was an option, but one that not many used outside of recording studios and higher end home audio installs. The question isn't why use it today, it's why didn't it take off in the first place.

As I said here in the 90's I'm the only person I knew that used it, and that was to transfer finished, mastered audio between my PC and my DAT recorder with a pure digital path. I still have the last card I used for transfers like that, AOpen AW744 Pro, which is sitting in one of my P3 machines out in the garage.

It'd require weird drivers, standards USB Audio doesn't do anything outside PCM.

I don't get this audio over usb meme. Isn't dac to 3.5mm jack more than enough?

apt-x isn't a thing and never will be anything more than a marketing scam. Some headsets support it and market that support as a good thing; it usually isn't. A small minority, not anywhere near the majority, of Android phones support apt-x. GNU/Linux doesn't support it. Windows doesn't support it. AAC is the standard to look for and if it's "apt-x" it frequently doesn't support AAC - which means that you'll be using SBC - not apt-x - for the vast majority of devices.

Why would you need USB audio to support anything beyond PCM? mpv decodes everything for you anyway.

The 3.5mm jack has two channels. And sound quality is somewhat lower but it does depend on the equipment and cable.

it goes beyond that though, 192kHz at 24bit stereo is almost 10Mbps

I have a sneaking suspicion that optical interconnects are going to be introduced at some point for monitors/TVs. Current displayport standards can't handle 4k hdr 144hz without lossy compression.

>Interesting, the highest bitrate file I have is 3355kbps (24 bit/96KHz FLAC)
USB doesn't do bitstream.

Had to buy a cheap optic DAC to connect my new TV to the old Technics amplifier. They don't put analog out on TVs anymore, that's probably better tho.
The only thing I wonder is why using an optic fibre for cables that will run a digital signal over incredibly short distances, a USB like wiring with custom connector and standard PCM would do the job