April 26, 2014
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Lifatec Silflex, Part 1
We're gonna party like it's 1989! 25 years ago, I started reading about so-called digital-to-analog converters, DAC for short. Many mid-fi ads depicted the optical Tos-link connection. Dude, anything optical was infinitely cooler than wires! Alas, those into high-quality audio reported that the Tos-link was sonically inferior to regular 75-ohm coaxial digital.
So all these years, I never bothered to play with Tos-link cables and connections. While the audiophiles went hog-wild for S/PDIF coxial and AES/EBU balanced digital connections, the Tos-link (and AT&T ST) languished. The silver lining about Tos-link's lack of popularity is that the cables tend to be affordable.
Lifatec? That sounds like something out of an RPG! Supposedly, Lifatec are headquartered a few miles west of Syracuse, New York. So what do we have here?
This is Lifatec's Silflex glass-fiber Tos-link cable. Supposedly, the fibers are made in Germany, but the rest of the product is manufactured here in the U.S. According to Lifatec's website, the retail price for a 3-foot Silflex (with regular Tos-link plugs at both ends) is $69.00. Yep, sixty-nine dollars. No, it's not as good as the other 69, but still.
Though I'm skittish about breaking the glass fibers, the Silflex is light, pliable, and soft. And thank heavens, it comes in a white-colored jacket, infinitely better than the ubiquitous black! But uh, there's absolutely no writing on the jacket. Nothing indicates which way signal should flow. Or maybe, in a Tos-link optical cable, it doesn't matter which way the cable is oriented.
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