TOSLINK: That one consumer fiber optic standard
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- You can support this channel on Patreon! Link below
Well. Isn’t that strange. Digital data through fiber optics, and in the home no less! Let’s explore this a little, shall we?
These may not be TOSLINKs but they sure are links!
Here's that Digital Sound playlist:
• Digital Sound and the ...
Technology Connections on Twitter:
/ techconnectify
The TC Subreddit
/ technologyconnections
Technology Connections 2 (the channel where I sometimes talk about stuff and generally don’t prepare for anything):
/ @technologyconnextras
You can support this channel on Patreon! It has been amazing what Patreon has done for this channel, but also for me (your dorky host) personally. Through the support of people just like you, Technology Connections has become my job and I am so excited and thankful for it! If you’d like to join the fine folks in a pledge to help the channel grow, please check out my Patreon page. Thank you for your consideration!
/ technologyconnections
And thank you to the following Patrons!
Case Tu'ikolovatu, Zimpan, Loïc Esch, Filmmaker IQ, Greg H, Jan Houben, Bren Ehnebuske, T.J. Zientek, AdamPlays, Vernon, Ton Brands, Scott Wright, Jason Ashcroft, Kory Howard, William Lahti, Thanasis Dimas, Marc Grondin, Lisa, Hex, Mark Stradling, Gareth Lucas, Anton Mironov, Peter Sodke, joseph, Kristian Scheibe, Jacob B, McLargehuge 510, Andrew, Nick, Greg Tan, The Masterpiece, Seanvdv, Chris Cody, Chad Fertig, M Shrimptoast, Joseph Houghtaling, Ben Tucci, Seph P, Dave Stares, Josh Braun, Lachy Bell, Joe Johnson, Daniel Dugger, Nathan Back, Christopher Lowell, Oleg, Michael Sacchi, PC Perspective, Allan Parker, Ali Elam, Dan Allen, Trent Crawford, Zhenbang Xiao, Maxime Aubaret, Markus Towara, Zackary E. Jenkins, Barky doggo, Ectra, Dylan Taylor, Reid Fishler, Emmanuel Jaramillo, Daniel Meagher, Joel, Neil Richardson, Clemens, Brian Kerber, Miranda Schwarck, Bill Bates, Centronias, Dennis Walsh, Nuno Silva, Alex Warren, marc lulkin, Christopher Moyer, Christian Schulz, Paul Robins, David Riediger, Les, Keenan Finucan, funcrusher, Ian Clanton-Thuon, Ryan Pratt, Don Nguyen, Gregory Knott, Paul Newton, Greg Golds, Robbert van Rijsewijk, David Jeffares, Theo Keeler, Travis Hagen, Alex Scheidly, Albizu Garcia , Tyler Alberico, Benjamin Ratner, Doug Davenport, John Virts, Paul Sharp, Craig Brickey, Zidy, Justin Trout, Brandon, John Galus, Karl Kornel, Danila Fediashchin, KD, Sound Board, Adam, Zach Rose, Arvin Prasetya Wiranata, Patryk Majewski, Chris & Brigette Rodriguez, Mattis Målbakken, Dirk Lembens, WB, AmbientCyan, Sam Calandra, Wolfgang Gschwendtner, qzb, William Preston, Dave Treadwell, Stuart Stanfield, Howard Longden, Christopher Olson, Kor Nielsen, Adrian Hunziker, Kori Fulgham, Stephen Amar, Bryce, Andy Holzhammer, Patrick van der Rijt, Ethan Mears, Eli Rueda, Jon Clegg, David Jeroslow, Ian Hills, Charles MacDonald, Andrew, Tim Jones, Chris Burger, Paul, AnsulFolf, c sporn, Zachary Kordenbrock, Roy Burns, Ian Spence, Mike A, Brandon Dean, Alex Dodge, Sten, hipp1eguy, Blake Kwasnicki, Mick Carroll, Justin Derleth, El Jefe, mrjoro, NEON725, Bree Asher, Emily Eisenberg, Hunter Scales, Mark Christian, Dylan Leblanc, Samuel, Brad Rustvold
something something
ground loops
something
Fun fact! I ran across a forum thread where someone was having a ground loop issue with a coax S/PDIF connection, and when someone suggested they switch to an optical connection to avoid that, _another_ entirely helpful and not-at-all pretentious person went off about how terrible optical connections are because of bandwidth and clock jitter.
*_You simply can't win_*
I love you
Ignore and onto the next video. More toasters
Going too deep into the audiophile community is just hell
Forget clock jitter, it's all about them gravitational waves, bending the light.
You can hear it when the snare is a nanosecond off, or when the soprano is an octal of an octave lower.
LOL, it goes down to what do you hate more: mains hum or a little jitter
"As dark as the future of Windows Phone"
Harsh, but fair.
Fair and true.
I know at least 6 people who were Windows Phone 8 users around three years ago. Five of them have migrated to Android; the sixth is still bravely hanging onto their Lumia.
@Liam O'Brien For curiosity’s sake: two months later, they’re *still* bravely hanging onto their Lumia, no sign of giving up.
Kevin Wells hahahahahaah
*Looks at the brave stack of little Lumia's in the drawer*
It was the OS/2 of Microsoft.
I laughed out loud at gold plated connectors on an optical cable. 🤣
What's wrong with it?
@@tf2scoutpunch175 Toslink is optical fiber, gold plating is for corrosion resistant electrical connections, just nothing to do with each other. It's like buying an orange at the grocery store advertising that it's high definition 4k.
@@tf2scoutpunch175 Welcome!
@@om617yota8 Nutshell
@@om617yota8 Gold cables could theoretically provide a better electrical connection 'if' the gold plate was thick enough, as it is a softer metal than copper and thus the gold 'could' create a snugger fit into the connection. Note, I don't generally bother using gold connections for anything. I do not think the human ear can tell the difference between gold and copper connections alone.
There’s an advantage to using fibre optic that went unsung here; the ability to entirely sidestep ground loop problems regardless of where things are plugged! This saved me a great deal of headaches when it was possible
Exactly, that's the real reason to use optical. It's also why the MIDI standard uses optoisolators for every connection, which are functionally the same as TOSLINK just without the cable: an LED and a photodiode (usually right next to each other in a single chip), which are electrically isolated from each other and allow the signal to pass from device to device without any electrical connection.
This! I also used Toslink to avoid hum caused by ground loop.
Yes, it's why I use them.
Hey guys, 10:58
@@well_as_an_expert_id_say ground loops are a rather more specific problem than general interference, and one that is so easy to fall foul of (and in turn providing a specific use case) that it definitely warrants pointing out
"Handy-Dandy Movie Input"
I'm so stealing this.
Not if I steal it first from the pits of hell
@@superretro_5773 More like the pits of Uranus.
Hardly Defined Media Interface
I'm teaching my daughter this.
That killed me! Lol!
As a low voltage system engineer I have to say this video is an absolute delight. The explanation of the transition from the pits in the CD all the way to the RCA line out was just so comprehensive. I'm saving This video to send to future trainees. Thank you for your knowledge.
You ain't seen nothing. No, seriously. Go check out the rest of his vids. They're all just as good and you'll likely find more stuff up your ally.
Holy shit, what an endorsement!
You should watch his Video about how the CD laser pickup works 😀
Yes, his videos are great; that is why I am annoyed that he poo-pooed the significance of ground loops and relegated the concept to similar importance as clock jitter.
But what about muh gold plated optical cables??
It DOES avoid ground loops, which are an issue..... sometimes.
as he mentioned implicitly at 11:46
When your monitor isn't properly grounded so it sends voltage through the DVI cable into the case.
I should have brought this up and investigated the issue a little further. The RF interference issue was what I focused on and admittedly I glossed over the potential for ground loops to form. Still, if we're simply talking about which format transmits the _data_ better, there's no difference at all. In fact, as I alluded to, some people think the increased clock jitter from TOSLINK means it can sound worse because... reasons? I guess?
@@TechnologyConnections but excess jitter would have the exact same effect as you pointed out with coax cables picking up em interference. the signal would be transmitted fine until the jitter exceeds the allowed amount, then it would break completely.
Nathan Sketch That assumes the signal is being buffered or dejittered. Historically, this wasn't always the case.
Yep, amazing that TOSLINK and S/PDIF are still being used. Even more amazing is that the original MIDI standard from 1982 is still actively used on new musical devices. RCA connectors are still used after being invented around 1937 to connect phonographs to RCA radios. But to me the grand champion longest-running interface is the phone plug (or jack), still used on electric instruments, headphones, mixing consoles, etc., which descends from a telephone switchboard jack first used around 1877.
As I recently discovered, having to replace the cable on my radar detector, it too uses a phone cable.
i think it might just be audio, like most audio connectors have remained unchanged and almost all unchanged connectors are audio
The design of the phone plug/jack seems to be perfect. And as aforementioned, established for over a century now. It gives just the right amount of electrical contact & it is sturdy. Sturdiness is key here. It actually resembles a design in biology/nature for millions of years, such as what equipment is used for sex between the 2 genders for many creatures, heh. Apple created an uproar when they removed the phone jack from their smartphones. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
yeah aux cables rule. 3.5m jack is the champion, no other connection can top that.
>mini toslink
Holy shit, I've seen it a few times before and always thought it was just a neat light to let you find the 3.5mm jack in the dark.
😂😂😂🤞
Ahahaha lmao
Still have a couple of Minidisc portables that support this. And if I remember correctly, it was referred to as an, "optical miniplug" in the documentation for the Sony MZ-1 (first MD on the market).
In some sound cards, that is the case but one of the outputs is also miniToslink (I think Xonar had this predominantly).
I had a Mac book pro from 2010 that had this. I didn't know until I installed Linux and couldn't figure out why my headphone jack lit up.
5:02 - “We are Toshiba. We make the future.”
*Shows HD DVD player.*
O O F
"Netflix free offer inside!"
They never ever saw it coming
@@Kevdama1 That's known as the "Trojan Horse" approach
Verizon, 2019:
"We don't wait for the future, we build it."
Uh-ohh
Still laughing about that. Still collecting HDDVD, too
I’m screaming
But HDMI doesn't go blinky-blinky. :(
@@EnvyPhnx If you can find any type of cable with a vacuum inside, please, let me know where the shenaningans came from and what are you smoking.
@@EnvyPhnx
> light through a vacuum
It's light through a transparent medium (such as fiberglass), there's no vacuum involved
Pooh Xi You mean… hear?
Actually that would be quite interesting! Just push the compression waves (sound) through small pneumatic tubes which on the the other end (pneumatically) drive a speak membrane.
...and now, a few months later, you can get RGB-HDMI. 'nuf said...
@@LaFaJe those rgb HDMI cables are optical too.
MIDI was invented in 1983 as well! A rare case of an entire industry deciding there needs to be a single standard, and then making a single standard and sticking to it.
MIDI was not a single standard until General MIDI was introduced in 1987
Audio is also shockingly computational un-intensive so it has basically been a solved problem since the 80s.
@@fredroberts8275 music note data is absolutely not a solved problem, midi is just way too intrenched, that's why MIDI 2.0 and MPE is a thing, and even that isn't perfect and doesn't cover everything
Uhh... no. MIDI has changed cord formats over the years.
"Optically smooth Jazz" - your commitment to subtitle jokes is outstanding (and commitment to subtitling your content)
Remember kids, don't let your light oxidize; gold-plate all your photons! Premium LUX!
Best comment ever!
Why does this sound like a gimmick Mercedes would put in their headlights
Pfft, real audiophiles use platinum-plated photons.
@David Daivdson It resists corrosion at least...
@David Daivdson Plastic wears faster for insertions.
gold plated fiber optic cables
_gold plated fiber optic cables_
*_GOLD PLATED FIBER OPTIC-_*
Gold is a great conductor for the electric signal you don't have !!! 😂🤣😭
@@amdphone2750 It's also not as prone to corrosion as the usual plas... oh.
@@ZGryphon You know, my plastic connectors have often gotten worn to where they start falling out. I don't want gold but since the nub is so small metal connectors could be better.
@@SetitesTechAdventures Huh. OK, fair enough. I didn't think of TOSLink as being the kind of things that get unplugged and plugged back in a lot. In any application I've used them in, they get plugged in and stay that way until I move to another house. :)
the gold plating counters the corrosion and rust buildup which otherwise might make using the connector difficult or dangerous.
My ancient computer motherboard has quite a noticeable noise floor on the headphone out plugs. It also transmits noise over USB to cheap DAC/Amps I've used in the past. Sending TOSLINK to cheap DACs removed all noise floor. This was a useful fix that served me well for many years, and an example of using optical signal to electrically isolate components.
Another useful "feature" of using a motherboard digital audio out is that you can keep the outputs set as default without them being auto disabled (windows) or having to deal with changing output devices (alsa headaches...).
Not to mention that GPU coil whine will make speakers would horrible unless you're on TOSlink. I had the noisiest 1080 and it drove me to switch to fibre for my desktop audio, I'll probably never go back to traditional cables for my desktop speakers
I have a cheap, nasty external USB soundcard that clicks the speakers loudly when it turns on, indicating a ground loop. But I bought it for the toslink out, which lets me use a better DAC of my choice essentially isolated from the problem.
That said, I'm still using fairly old hardware for digital audio. Good DACs these days can actually perform better over USB (typically better jitter control plus support for higher-bandwidth formats). Ground loops are nasty but should be solved by the receiving device going forward.
@@WildTangler The cap noise from high end GPU's is insane is it not? My 1080 was(is, still have it, on the shelf) ntb but my 3080ti is insane when it loads up.
Yeah and my SMSL dac won't use it's 192khz sample rate with a USB. Unless I use an optic cable, it's maxes out at 96khz.
MacBook pros had the mini toslink before the great IO purge...
Hell, even the MacBook non-pro had one.
Yeah, but them removing mini-Toslink is odd since they still kept the headphone jack. Maybe the mini-Toslink hardware was too thick to fit in the thinner chassis. Who knows?
The Mac mini had fiber in and out as well.
Yup. This was common for about a decade and just about nobody (including tech conn) even noticed
I'm pretty sure my PowerBook G4 had it to.
“We are toshiba, WE MAKE THE FUTURE”
*shows toshiba HDDVD player*
To be fair, it DID have a Netflix sticker on it
Velleity ah ok, that accounts for the massive failure of HDDVD 👍🏼👍🏼
FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN haha yes
While I predicted that Blu-Ray would win (if nothing more than it was included in the PS3), the one thing HD-DVD did that I wish Blu-Ray adopted was being Region Free. Buy a disk in China and it'll work on a player in Europe, Africa or America. Doesn't matter. Blu-Ray still has regions though it's way better than DVD. DVD had 8 regions but Blu-Ray has 3. You essentially have America and Eastern Asia (Minus China), Europe and Africa (including Australia and New Zealand) and finally Africa and western Asia, along with China.
I believe Toshiba also made Betamax machines
"As dark as the future of Windows 'phone", ooh, that's dark!
It hurt me really bad because I was a huge supporter for Windows phone...
I almost did a spit take of the hot dog I was eating!
Tyler Coates ,,,You can blame Google pretty much not allowing apps for the demise of the Windows phone.
I actually said the words "oh SNAP!" when he said that.
@@prismstudios001 Worse, you can blame Windows Phone for killing Nokia.
My old Sony 5.1 surround sound system (circa 2004) makes use of TOSLINK, and it connects to my Chinesium SMART TV (circa 2020) without any issues and provides excellent sound quality. This video did a perfect job of explaining what was going on behind the scenes, and it makes me happy that old standards like these are still applicable and seamlessly integrate with today's technology.
It’s great to see a homie with a similar setup to me. Mid naughties Yamaha surround sound system with a Kogan smart TV bought in 2019.
I have both optical and SPDIF connections that can do 5.1 on my old receiver, so no need for optical but maybe devices only have optical.
@@abc123fhdi S/PDIF multi-channel is always compressed (lossy), Toslink can pass 8 channels of uncompressed 24-bit/48kHz.
Multichannel *recording and production* will bear specific limitations if compressed data is being implemented at the get-go.
"Handy-Dandy Movie Input"
I love this channel so much. Never change.
I oil my TV for smoother frame rates
ah, so there is use for the snake oil!
Nice one
I keep I little bottle of LAN-Lube next to my router for the same reason.
i oil my speakers for smoother sound
-not an audiophile, 2020
Do you think that’ll work on my computer?
11:17 - Another advantage of TOSlink is it eliminates ground-voltage interference. If you have two devices connected that have slightly different ground-voltages for some reason, that difference will bleed through a copper cable and potentially interfere with anything else connected to the same grounding circuits inside each device. That won't happen with TOSlink.
It's also immune to coil whine from the system. I've been using TOSlink for my desktop speakers for years, no matter how whiny your parts get, you'll never hear it go through the fibre
you can also get optical cables that are only 2.2mm thick and 50ft long for or only $12
Sadly most audio-interference in modern computers are inside the computer, like the powerconsumption and crappy grounding of the USB and the memory-bus bleeding into the audio-amplifier. When I move my mouse around I get audio noice.....there is no skill in engineering nowadays!
@@andreassjoberg3145 the same happened to me. i went out of my mind multiple weeks before figuring out the solution
@@grants7390 Out of sheer curiosity have you tested spdif vs toslink to see if the interference is present on the spdif? I know the exact noise you speak of, i run toslink to my amp from my main desktop, been so long sine i used spdif i forget if that interference was present. Don't believe ive observed this noise over HDMI or over my USB-BT gaming headset but it could be that these maybe run some kind of noise gate?
“Yelling at computers to turn the lights off...” you, sir, have been cracking me up more and more!
8:21 "As dark as the future of Windows Phone."
He didn't have to call me out so soon in the video🥲
Toslink is a godsend for connecting certain types of consumer audio equipment together to avoid ground loops.
Toslink would be nice to connect my N3DS to my PC when I'm streaming gameplay from the N3DS online, as I need a 3.5mm audio cable going from the headphone out port of the N3DS to the mic in port on my case's front panel to capture audio whilst gameplay video is pumped over WiFi to my PC via the streaming homebrew I have on the N3DS (since there's just about no hardware capture cards made for it nowadays after KatsuKitty closed shop back in like 2016), and to prevent a mid-stream game loss because of the drain on the battery I need to keep the N3DS charging from a USB charger cable.
The problem is; if I have the N3DS plugged in to the USB ports on my PC to keep it charged, that introduces audible noise on the stream and recording due to a ground loop issue between the USB ports and the front panel 3.5mm audio ports as the grounds of USB and audio ports are connected via the circuitry of the N3DS itself.
Current solution is to have the N3DS charger cable running off a 60W 5-port tablet/phone charger stand as though the charger stand and PC share a Mains Ground, for whatever reason that doesn't induce a loop through the N3DS unlike if I was charging the N3DS through the PC itself.
Nice video, thank you for it😀 Ground Loop could be an issue creating hum, which can be avoided with Toslink. With my band we use Toslink cable to connect 16 Channel musical AD converters to our digital audio workstation and back to DA converters. We use a high quality 4 times Toslink cable, but of course with much higher bandwidth as SPDIF. With this we could eliminate him from ground loops, we had before using copper cable
Don't forget about those fiber optic trees everyone had in the 90s.
I assumed the keying of the TOSLINK cable was to keep things that aren't a TOSLINK cable from being plugged in.
Those fiber-optic trees were cool shit, man.
so, what I'm hearing is...
"It's not a laser! It's a little light bulb that blinks!"
Toslink envy
If anyone attacks us, you can blink 'em to death.
Set it from stun to kill
I get the movie reference!!! (Happy like the dinosaur)
"Handy Dandy Movie Input". Thank you, I laughed probably more than I should have.
I like that much better than the real definition!
No you haven't, the joke was perfect!
I'm officially renouncing the High Definition Multimedia Interface in favor of Handy Dandy Movie Input, and I feel good about this decision.
Same, here I am attempting to absorb this very technical breakdown and he hits me with handy dandy movie input...all with the same tone and seriousness of the rest of the discussion...I laughed for longer than I care to admit, as far as I'm concerned this entire video was just a slow burn leading up to that explosive joke I love it
The digital junk you used on your voice to demonstrate transmission failure was a really nice touch man.
Just in case, looks like it wasn't just an arbitrary junk but a real signal, distorted somehow during transmission.
the fact that there are TOSLINK cables with gold plated connectors just makes me want to die
You're kidding right they seriously have gold-plated ones?
@@Trekeyus consumers are stupid
Yes
Oh my gosh I want one now. I think I might have issues.
that says it all. Now the whole thing seems like a scam
"It's as dark as the future of Windows Phone"
Ouch, my heart.
I'd say "shots fired" but since MS already fired those shots at itself there's not much added by my saying so...
I love your channel so much. Your personality is engaging and unique. Your brand of witty, dry humor and the deep knowledge of the subject matter is as good as any on the platform. I would bet that a persistent desire to satisfy your insatiable natural curiosity has endowed you with a wealth of knowledge. Your intelligent and thoughtful presentation is very much appreciated by many people, I'm sure!
I lost it when you said "we are Toshiba, WE MAKE THE FUTURE" and showed a Toshiba branded HD DVD player hahaha
A HD DVD player with a discount on Netflix subscription.
adenowirus Especially considering that would’ve been old enough to be for their disc delivery service.
I loved all the niche jabs in this video 😆
lmao
"As dark as the future of Windows 'phone", damn man, that's cold :P
Hearing that as someone who still uses a Windows Phone (in 2019!!!) and plans to keep it way beyond its expiry date, that hurts.
I'm watching this with a Windows Phone Lumia 540, yes, yes, *I know it too well*
my lumia 830 is almost dead, but it is still just about hanging in there. Instagram and Messenger recently got discontinued, and there arent going to be any more os updates, but it was £21.02, so im keeping it until i get a similar deal on an android
Yup, MS gave on it long time ago. If you care about your time and happiness level, just upgrade to a faster newer phone. Phones works so fast now, only complaints now are battery life but even then its nothing to stress about.
@@pryn.darkstorm why? I have an old WinPhone and I'd rather lick a taser than use it for any practical purpose whatsoever. I tried using it as a standalone music player and that didn't work well because all the audio player apps still available suck; then I tried to make a reddit reader out of it, and even that worked like shit. At this point it just sits in a drawer as a testament to the folly of microsoft.
My speakers on my 10-year-old TV gave out last year, and I bought a new little speaker for it. The only jack they have in common is a TOSLINK, and it's still working like a charm for me!
It was great for Mini disc recording, since you got an automatic sync and autostart of the recording as soon as you pressed play on your cd-player (after toggling the rec switch on the Mini-disc-player, to ready the Mini-disc for the incoming digital signal). Also all the songs names and track number automatically got transferred as well! Really neat!
At least on the home MD decks, copying the track titles required a separate cable, though. (Sony Control A II, which is basically Sony infrared remote commands, but over cable instead of infrared light.) I know some portable units also required a special cable, though others have said that some models could do it over TOSLink alone.
Best thing with TOSLINK is you don't get those annoying ground loops.
ground loops?
was about to comment about that but now i just need to agree
@@Half_Finis when two pieces of electronics have ground planes, which should be at 0v, chances are they are actually different voltages. When you connect two grounded devices together with a grounded cable (rca for instance) and their grounds are at different voltages you get current flow which means noise in sensitive audio equipment. Wikipedia has better explanations.
I'm surprised that I've never experienced a ground loop before, especially with my crazy audio setup.
@@CaveyMoth You can get problems plugging a P.C into a HiFi, unless you have a external sound card that does give you Isolation or a active D.I box.
-"gold plated optical connections ... "
...yeah... my reaction on that too.
I need to taste your love.
That escalated quickly
Holy carp, I thought the glowing 3.5mm jack was to help you find it in the dark or something.
Well, at least it has a use that most mini jacks don't have ;)
I'll just go with most. I once joked about there being no bikinis for men and that it's sexist and was told to look up Zardos. I'm not assuming anything anymore. I can't afford the money for more therapy.
LOL! I've spent enough time trying to poke cables into dim shadowy sockets that this would actually be pretty useful.
@TheMarsBus friendly reminder that this is a no bullying channel!. unless youre an apple fan.
The 3.5mm output jacks on my computers sound card are illuminated as well as color-coded. I'm pretty sure they're not optical but it definitely makes plugging in my 5.1 channel surround sound to the proper jacks while behind my desk a heck of lot easier. Way better than trying to read the faint labels stamped into the metal on most computer equipment.
I looked up Zardos, and while I do have (and have used) a Borat mankini, the screenshot image on the wiki page for that movie was horrendous.
I like how optical also has a role in AC/DC electronics by means of being optocouplers. Isolating two sides of an electronic circuit avoiding stuff like ground loops in things like regulated power supplies.
Gold plated optical connectors. How ... interesting.
As George Carlin once observed, "Nail together two things that have never been nailed together before and some [person] will buy it from you."
somehow i don't think he said person
@@H31MU7 Brackets are used to show when a word has been changed or otherwise added to a quote.
In audiophile market? Sell _anything_ for _any_ price and some will buy.
@Gotta have Bling
Like TOSLINK with gold fittings😂
"We make the future!"
>cuts to HD-DVD player.
I chuckled.
The amount of data that can be multiplexed and transmitted on a single optical fiber is staggering. I recently took a training class on service provider optical networking equipment. When they covered how to add and drop individual 100Gb circuits using multiple wavelengths, and how you could then merge banks of those multiplexed circuits, the numbers started getting to be incomprehensible. It's truly remarkable stuff.
That will become relevant when consumer optical standards move past blits from an LED through fishing line to a photodiode.
Here's hoping.
@@TykeMison_ Probably from the nickel-silver plating of the cable to electrically isolate the signal. Also the brass fittings.
Audiofiles: We need an optical cable to avoid electrical noise.
Also audiofiles: We need to use noisy vinyl records from 30 years ago.
B-but it's WARM noise!
Audiophiles think turntables having convenient and nice features like auto stop and start will hinder the sound quality.
They just love soaking in snake oil. I love records, but audiophiles are the worst.
But if it's gold plated I can definitely hear the difference with $1000 cables.
Records do have better potential quality than any digital format, but still manage to suck because there's so many more sources of interference. Dust, static, wear on the record, wear on the needle, etc, it all ads up to terrible audio quality unless you manage to get everything exactly right (which is virtually impossible)
I must say though, you get better music putting a Frisbee on a turntable than you do from putting one in a CD player.
@@GremlinSciences your last point got to me bad
Handy Dandy Movie Input lol
That's the only way I'm referring to HDMI anymore XD
Thank you for this! It'll go into my vocabulary right next to Never Twice Same Color!
i prefer Handy Dandy Movie Interface
@Pikgears Interface is the correct word, though. Can't have that
"we MAKE the future!" *shows hd dvd player* i actually cracked up there xD
Me too... I also *might* have slightly shouted "SHAAAADE" out loud.
"It's pretty impressive that a digital standard introduced in 1983 is still quite common in consumer A/V equipment" MIDI's that old too. The classics just don't quit.
just like the koss porta pro headphones - the 1984 design still sells today
Those Koss headphones are speeding up my bald spot
At least those big DIN connectors are going out of style.
MIDI at least has a new version out now-although I don’t think it’s very widely supported as yet.
Watched this video many times over the last few years. I just today noticed you calling HDMI as "Handy Dandy Movie Input". It tickled me so much that it compelled me to comment and therefore break my 15 year streak of following the Prime Directive on RUclips. Love this channel and your work.
I loves the TOSLINK. I'm using it to output TV audio to a TOSLINK->RCA adapter so I can (in my office) get TV audio to my mixer and (in my bedroom) get TV audio to some powered bookshelf speakers on the nightstands. Wife and I each have one so we can watch latenight TV and not wake the other.
For the longest time the AT&T U-Verse receivers had a software bug and they couldn't do proper 5.1 sound over HDMI so I would use the TOSLINK connection for surround sound.
Oh god you just answered one of my life's biggest questions.
Back when I used MacBooks, I realized that the headphone jack would glow red when installing Windows. I always suspected that it was some optical interface, but I was told many times that it was just an indicator that would light up when there was a driver issue.
Happened to me under OS X also, due to a dirty connector. Plugging in a cable and unplugging a couple of times would help.
Too bad they removed the mini-toslink and just have the normal 3.5mm jack since 2016
It was a great feature of almost all apple computers from 2006 to 2016.
@@pgrobban Be glad they still have the 3.5mm jack. Kind of surprised they haven't pulled that so you have to buy an adapter like you do for their phones.
The headphone jack of my MSI laptop also glows red, i use that light to help connect my headphones while i´m using the laptop in the dark... please don´t throw me stones, i always thought that a laptop that has a illuminated keyboard can has as well a helping light to connect you headphones... you can throw me stones now :(
It is true that it lights up due to a driver issue, because old versions of the driver included in Boot Camp didn't turn off the output when unused, but not as a "driver issue indicator light."
"it's as dark as the future of windows phone"
Holy crap what an unexpected burn
@Brad Smith You booted it up just to reply to this ironically, didn't you?
@@fallingwaterI had to transition back to my Icon while I wait on a replacement for a phone that took a dive in a toilet. I felt the shame when he made that joke.
Right in the feels
ROTFL
It hurt to hear that.
You can get toslink multi-input selectors and they're 100% mechanical, you just rotate a dial that changes which hole the light goes through.
TOSLINK is the ultimate ground loop killer.
While SPDIF signal itself is not affected by interference and current loops, the act alone of connecting two devices via an SPDIF or any other cable that happens to connect grounds together is known to make some devices squeal regardless of any specific input, especially if we're talking about cheap shit like consumer HiFi amplifiers/receivers as opposed to studio equipment.
There's a lot of fibre optic stuff in car entertainment systems, called MOST, because a bit of clear plastic is cheaper than copper and weighs less than copper and i guess resilience to current loops and EMI is nice to have too, i mean you know what happens when you start the engine.
I have found TOSLINK advantageous a few times when the audio equipment had a ground loop hum. Using TOSLINK eliminated the problem. It always seemed to happen when I had the equipment temporarily installed somewhere, so I never attempted to troubleshoot the ground loop issue.
I always thought that the best application for TOSLINK would be in car audio. Car audio often has grounding and other interference issues between components. But I'm not aware of any manufactures that used it.
Mercedes introduced a proprietary optical bus in the early/mid 2000s called MOST that carried audio from the head unit and CD changer to a separate amplifier
Other makers used it, not sure who actually created it
It's a nightmare to diagnose, but yes, it delivers data throughout the car, with all devices dealing with audio, even handsfree, using it. It's perfect as long as it's good, but if one device dies and breaks the loop, the whole thing turns silent.
Crutchfield recommends you DON'T update your Volvo stereo (2007 XC90) because they use proprietary optical connections to get the sound around, so that apparently exists. Complicated enough that Crutchfield just don't want to sell you a head unit and speakers so they don't have to deal with the support.
Better than the crappy roadies that just cut the ground wire to stop the hum
Audio Control supports Toslink
There's a benefit to optical cables over copper - you don't get ground loops.
TOSlink is essentially a stretched opto isolator. So all your audio stuff is electrically isolated. Not much difference for digital signals but if you have a mix of analogue and digital it might be helpful.
Also LEDs, photodiodes and plastic fibre optic cables are all pretty cheap. Add in the fact it seems like an open standard with no licensing fees and I can see why it took off.
You’re exactly right!
Some very high end bench multimeters (like 7.5 and 8.5 digit units) use internal fiber-optic optocouplers to keep the clean analog and ADC circuits completely galvanically isolated from the dirty digital circuits, and those optocouplers are in essence nothing more than TOSLink modules, but which accept the bare fiber instead of the connector.
Apple adopted Toslink starting on on the PowerMac G5 in 2003, up through the Mac Pro, until 2012. Also mini-Toslink, on the PowerBook G4 in 2005, and it remained in the MacBook Pro line until mid 2015. As well as the original MacBook line from 2005 to 2010. At the time I thought for sure they were going to release an iPod with some kind of Toslink/optical audio based headphones (for just $199 lol).
What Alex described happening with a combo port happened on my 2009 MacBook; the LED got bumped by a headphone plug, and TOSLink got stuck on perpetually. I never had audio come out the speakers ever again 😔
Also in the AppleTV!
I noticed this when I had linux on my work laptop (the LED was always on)
@@dantehicks1979 That happened to my wife's macbook back in the day. There's a little switch in the port, like on the door of your refrigerator for the light, which gets stuck. I was able to get it unstuck with a toothpick to restore audio. Who needs the genius bar when you have toothpicks?
Point of order: Where I've had a choice whether or not to use TOSLINK, the alternative has generally not been S/PDIF, but rather analog RCA or 3.5mm, making TOSLINK the only digital option.
Yes. I also use it because it's the only digital output I have.
Point of odor, Lisa stinks.
Same here, the only digital option as well. The alternative is to buy a USB sound card and connect from PC to sound system via USB. You would think sound systems would USB instead of 3.5mm nowadays anyways, but sadly nope.
Just before the turn of the last century, I was working with some fairly advanced Toshiba Programmable Logic Controllers. (PLCs) For the industrial process at hand, we used the very same Toslink optical fiber cables and connectors as are used for audio, to connect many PLCs and computers via Toslink ethernet switches. each ethernet port used a pair of fiber optic cables - transmit and receive. It seems to me that we could have about a 300 meter run between switches, and maintained 100 mpbs speeds with 20 ports per switch. It compared very favorably with cat-5 cable, with fewer cables between stations. The speeds were likely limited only by the hardware in use at the time.
In an environment of large industrial drives with power transients and harmonic distortions, optical fiber for ethernet was good stuff.
"Handy Dandy Movie Input" really killed me.
The fact that the optical connection completely electrically isolates the two connected devices is no joke! At some point I had really irritating problems with connecting some audio devices, there was a clear "hum" that was some kind of ground loop interference. I tested a lot with different grounding settings, and when I finally was able to use a toslink cable, the interference was eliminated. So I would say that in some "bad" grounding related setups the optical connection's electrical insulation property can be a saver!
Salesman: The gold makes it faster!
Me: Than... light?
Salesman: YES!
Me: Why aren't you selling these to nasa???
The gold plated ones are so beautifully audiophile and stupid
why did i imagine this being said in a sears?
It's just to stop corrosion. I mean have you seen corroded plastic!
Salesman: "But this one goes to eleven".
Faster than light, did he not listen to himself ?
I'm listening to this via TOSLINK output to my soundbar... Sounds great
All audio out of my PC goes through a TOSlink cable.
@@1pcfred Yep mine too.
@@Okiboy1426 I bought a Sony BDV-E370 Blu-ray player at a yard sale for $10. I use it as my PC amplifier with 5.1 surround sound. I replaced the 4 satellite speakers with better ones and still use the center and sub from that system. It sounds pretty good to me.
@@1pcfred That sounds like my setup. I'm using my almost 15-year-old Yamaha receiver hooked up to my JBL tower speakers, center channel and sub. I don't have the rear surrounds set up currently though. Our house has built-in surround speakers now so it's been nice recycling the components from what used to be my main system for my computer set up in my office.
@@Okiboy1426 I just have two pairs of mini speakers but they sound way better than the satellites that the player came with. The original speakers were really flat and thin sounding. I like some more presence in sound. Sometimes a little improvement can make a big difference.
Excellent video! Toshiba also has 'TOSLINK 190' which goes much further/ faster and can be bi-directional.
I just love how I can use my mom's 20+ year old pretty high-end stereo with broken cd-player and give it a second life together with my 2020 tv using 30+ year old technology.
8:21 Windows Phone burn! Critical hit!
It would need to be alive to be hurt
What is odd is that I don't really have a strong interest in Technology but I love watching your stuff. That is the mark of a good creator good on you!
I loved using the toslink on my ps2 and 3 since the other connector ports on my reciever i had at the time were full with other stuff. Great for good game audio.
Same here. I still use it for my PS4 as well, but I'm sad to see it go with newer systems. I still remember how amazing it was back on PS2.
Only if you will accept 5.1 - and don't want 7.1 surround.
@@buckroger6456 I have a PS5 and still use the toslink, well the Samsung Neo Qled has toslink to my audio system but it still works just fine :)
We are Toshiba, we MAKE the future.
HD DVD... That was entirely too funny!
Well, they _did_ make the future, but Blu-ray had capabilities for more adcanced DRM schemes, so it was an obvious pick for movie studios concerned over piracy. Also, Blu-ray being included on the PS3 from the get-go was a big factor in its success. Xbox 360 with its separately sold HD-DVD drive ($199) couldn't quite compete...
They know how to make poor power supples for sure
Somebody: How do CDs wo-
Me: DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE
If the very, very, extremely slight chance somebody I knows asks that question, I will be sure to blurt that out.
Finally! An example of destructive wave interference to add in Physics 101 besides noise cancellation headphones.
"Just pretend its 1985, everyone is doing it anyway" - "One of the Stranger Things about it ...". I see what you did there ;)
Great video. Fun fact: every Mac with a 3.5mm headphone jack and all airport express devices going back to late G4 PowerBooks has secretly also possessed the ability to output digital audio over mini toslink.
If they had a separate input jack they could take optical input too. While doing my podcast I could run a remote person in on skype or whatever into the mixer digitally, avoiding all the amplifier noise in the notebook, (Mind you the MacBook Pro and macs in general were worlds better than any Wintel laptop I've ever owned) and then run a Mix-minus by sending every track, (yes I recorded every person in the studio to their own track. made editing so much easier) except the input from the laptop, back to the laptop over Toslink.
Don't know about more recent desktops, iMacs may still have optical minijacks, PowerMacs and cheese grater MacPros had seperate Toslink jacks.
The MacBook Pro’s from 2016 and newer axed the feature, probably because most people didn’t know it even existed or saw the red light at random not knowing what it was
@@Noaddedsalt01 and also if you didn't have the right audio driver under Windows/Linux, your port would light up red
@@unicodefox correct, usually it happens in setup when installing bootcamp, where you see a lot of confused posts on forums on what is going on and why there is no sound
I used to trade in used high-end (and very high end) hifi equipment. As soon as I discovered the Airport Express and it's Toslink hidden in the mini jack it made every single high end CD player pretty well obsolete. All you needed was a high end DAC. And then I discovered the Meridian Digital Audio processor which sat between the Airport and the DAC. This combo of Airport and Meridian has never been beaten 20+ years later.
"Handy Dandy Movie Interface" is my new favorite description. Right up there with "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms".
And CCITT = Can't Conceive Intelligent Thoughts Today. (It's an old one.)
Cool Coconut Tele Vision
I prefer Horizontal Door Media Interface. Because it came with an aspect ratio that is way too wide from it looking like a door on its side. It can also be thought of Horizontal Door TV.
Hartmut W Sager And PBCAK
Pointless personal fact: my father was part of Bell Canada's fiber optic conversion in the 80s and 90s so my childhood was FULL of cheap copper wire with colourful coatings to make crafts with, since there was just so frigging much of it.
That's pretty cool, I'm using infrastructure your father was a part of.
"As dark as the future of the Windows phone" hahahah I honestly chuckled to that. That was savage!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Great punch line but it hurt so much. Lol.
As an ex user of windowsphone...i just still cant accept the fact that i had to bail out into android device... (Coming from wp7.5 nokia lumia 900 and then wp8/wm10 nokia lumia 1020)
I was going to subscribe untill I heard that punchline! Haha Lumia 1520 for life!
I too enjoyed my Nokia 720 Windows cellphone. I am bummed out that my Nokia won't even turn on. It seems to be bricked. Did Microsoft kill my 720?
@@johnfitzgerald4456 probably bad motherboard...since 1 of my lumia 900 still working fine (with bad battery and doing nothing good in term of current usage)..my other lumia900 is dead due to bad motherboard
16:55 Handy Dandy Movie Input had me rolling XD
"As dark as the future of the Windows Phone" is pretty dark in itself, and honestly a low blow.
Ded
It's pure honesty
Microsoft deserves any and all low blows coming it's way regarding Windows Phone. Or Zune. Or Plays4Sure. .....
This one hurt me, I loved my WP but I was forced to """upgrade""" to Android this year
Why is everything a 3rd party app? Where is the functionality, why can't I change the color of chat bubbles.. why?
(As much as I hate droid I still pick it over crapple)
@@LeviathanRX everything is a 3rd party app because everyone can develop for it.
Fun fact : almost every multi-cab multiplayer arcade machine used TosLink for the communications
Apple was (is, maybe I don’t know) huge about the 3.5 mm toslink connector.
Dysfunctional Wombat apple doesn’t seem to be huge about 3.5 mm connectors... I’m still bitter.
@@d3line me too
Yup. They got rid of mini-Toslink in the 2016 redesigned MacBook Pro.
I'm still waiting for the day when everyone accepts that bluetooth is bad for you, and we can all look back on this whole exposing the general population to pulse modulated microwaves thing the same way we do with letting your kids play in the xray machine at the shoe store.
People are unfortunately either not as upset as they should be, or upset about the wrong things. Although it's a cell phone anyway, so what difference does it make.
@@Acetyl53 that's kinda the rub about it, isn"t it?
We get rid of Wi-Fi, at least in the home maybe, but then we still have to deal with cell phones operating during calls on that microwave range. I've seen some of those videos of popping popcorn by dialing in or out with a phone held close near it.
I think though that having it in the pocket of a thick pair of pants reduces the issue significantly, but I don't know for a fact. What I do know is this has been an open question for I think over 10 years and still no big official word I've heard on it. Maybe we need more tradegies caused by it first for a real change, and even then, what do we do about it? That's the question I have and I doubt anyone has an answer for it yet. Bluetooth is just on top of....
Wait, are those new split earbud things running on bluetooth?!
Maybe I should watch for increased amount of cases of brain cancer then in 5-10 years.
@14:25 - As a former cable installer...THANK YOU! I worked during the period of time where cable was switching from analog to digital, and I can't tell you how many times I had to give people lectures about digital signal transmission and the worthlessness of paying extra for the "fancy" (ripoff) cables, gold or whatnot.
Now with HDMI 2.1 you actually need a very fancy cable. Oops.
I always laughed at the overpriced GOLD plated toslink cables for "superior audio quality"...... overpriced junk!
Yeeep. Preying on the people who don't know how these things work, either because they don't understand how the technology works on the whole or because they do understand the basic principles but not the specifics on either end (IE understanding that a USB cable uses electric voltage modulation to transmit data, but not understanding specifically how that gets out of the connector).
It bears pointing out that even on cables that actually *are* based on electricity, gold-plated connectors are useless in the broad majority of cases and potentially counterproductive in the remaining ones where it _does_ make a difference. Gold is a worse conductor than copper, and in most connectors the surface that gets gold-plated has no actual role in transmitting data, it's just there to guide the connector. (And honestly, plating the surface of a connection makes very, very little difference to begin with, so.)
Hex Flareheart It’s called audiophoolery.
I actually had someone come into the store and ask for gold plated optical cables. I figured it was a prank. They weren't kidding. I asked them if they did realize optical signals were not conducted via gold, and that gold is in fact opaque. Seemed to go right over their head.
Common sense, isn't.
Except, in the video, the cables were around $8. The reality is that if the consumer has the choice of a gold plated cable and a non-gold plated cable at around the same price, they'll always choose the gold plated cable.
Same with HDMI.... Exactly the same scam, yet "audiophiles" swear by them. Absolutely hilarious.
The mini Toslink is on all the AirPort Express devices. That's when I first heard of and used it.
Macbooks had it for a while. The software had a tendency to glitch out and leave the optical on when no cable was plugged in.
I had one of the first portable Sony minidisc players back in 1992. It had a mini Toslink port for recording.
@@gajbooks Exactly. Almost all Macs (until very recently) had optical out.
The first time I saw it was the optical input on a 2013 Astro MixAmp.
@@gajbooks Yep. I had this problem on 2 Macbook Pros. Thats where I learned about optical 3.5mm
toslink's real advantage:
one cable for full surround sound.
then came hdmi...
It supported only compressed surround, not lossless. Only in 2-channel mode does it allow uncompressed throughput.
@@MediocreHexPeddler considering most people listen to lossy mp3 and streamed media. It shows that isn't an issue. Spdif is still preferred by me because I don't have to route irrelevant video along with it.
I use TOSLINK to plug my PlayStation 2 console into my AV receiver and also to plug my gaming headset's transmitter into my Xbox, even my TV itself has that plug
SCART! The original HDMI!
There is no HDMI between a PC motherboards and a sound system.
Nearly three years later TC is still educating and entertaining me.
Its simply remarkable how far youve come in your video making skills. Kuddos to you, your videos have become remarkable viewing experience"
Yup. Pure brilliance at this point!
Absolutely, and very well put. This is my favorite so far.
One handy thing...TOSLINK gives a free extra input on sound receivers...so I van use one for PC and one for TV and keep analog input free for a headphone input from other stuff
Same here.
Yup. I love screwing around with sound system setups, the extra input (especially being capable of surround sound) allows for some interesting options.
Same use I find for component on HDTV's
Lots of Apple hardware has had Mini Toslink. When I was a wee lad, I actually used to use the Mini Toslink on my 20" iMac for connecting to the surround-sound receiver at my desk (seriously).
My last Macbook pro from 2012 had mini Toslink aswell
The only advantage I can think of for optical vs wired digital cables is that the bandwidth of standard RCA cables did not handle the multiple channel multiplexed optical signals and it would be tempting to use an audio RCA cable in a SPDIF port. Maybe the plan was to have multiple high frequency channels on optical toslink. I am sure that the optical cable was a marketing ploy much like the "gold plated" optical connectors though. I once saw a power strip in Fry's Electronics that said it was "Windows 95 Certified" on the box, obviously at a higher price.. People with more money than brains will buy the most expensive product they can find thinking it must be better. "Monster" cables were just such a marketing ploy.
EDIT: Another poster mentioned "No Ground Loops" as an advantage to optical cables which is certainly a huge advantage in an entertainment system containing a dozen or more electric components.
That was very informative. Thank you. I hadn't realized TOSLINK was that old and that simple a standard.
2 advantages of TOSlink over Digital Coax. smaller and more flexible made for easier routing through ducting for me. Not really prone to corrosion in moist environments.
For all of Shrek's audio needs.
That's really going to vary on your cable, Digital Coax can be thinner and more flexible than TOSlink. Though I know a lot of digital coax cables are over shielded crazy cables, when you could just use an old thin RCA cable.
Most common advantage of Toslink compared to electrical connections is electrical decoupling, to prevent ground loops.
Not to prevent EMI coupling into the cable.
I like the gold plated Toslink, it's evidence of the existence of "audiophiles" aka. "audiophools".
Yeah... Ground loops suck. Especially when you have to start fail searching all your equipment to figure out what exactly is causing it.
@@rainmaker6217 yeah I've had big headaches of USB audio equipment in the past.
USB ground often is connected to the enclosure of both the host and client.
I have ditched all that USB audio crap, except for my Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, which has a ground lift switch on the back that actually works (on some products, those are fake).
@@QoraxAudio I have a PCI-e soundcard that sounds quite good so I had hoped to keep that, but that may indeed be my culprit. I have some groundloop filters laying around since I wroked on my car that I figured I would try. If worst comes to worst I'm getting a seperate DAC with Toslink in.
Mini TOSLink is incredibly common. Even my $20 RCA in/out audio interfaces have optical outs in the 3.5mm jacks, as do 3/5 of my laptops. Every TOSlink cable I ever bought came with a little clear lightpipe adapter that fits on to make it a 3.5mm form factor.
A place where this would work would have been car stereos. It would have saved a lot of headaches trying to get rid of interference while hooking up an aftermarket amplifier
I've seen it used on high end car amps and equipment, I mean high end though, not your house brands like Pioneer or Kenwood.
@@ixionn563 Now you take that back! I demand respect to Pioneer!! )))
@@Offsettttt Don't worry, no shade to either company. :) I'm a massive Kenwood fan, I have vintage 1970s and 1980s home audio Kenwood amps and receivers, and although I have far less Pioneer stuff I do have a Pioneer amp in my truck and it's great! (I know you're being sarcastic)
@@ixionn563see; thats why whatshisname use "garden variety" 50 times by videos
It was implemented. Have som old Sony equipment (early 90's) where the different boxes are connected via Toslink.
TOSLINK can transfer audio into TEMPEST-areas with much less headache than if it were on a copper wire. I've seen it used that way.
James Bond uses Toslink? That's so 90s.
toslink was great for recording CDs to minidiscs in the late 90s before mp3 players had enough capacity to be usable.
I used the optical out on my ps2 to my minidisc to record the music I made on the Music/Music Generator series.
Yeah, the fact that it would automatically preserve track separation was great. I never would have bought into MD if I'd had to do that manually, but just hit record on the minidisc player and play on the CD player, come back after however long the album was and you were good to go.
Having a little device with a ton of music, rewritable and digital was amazing.
Thanks to you, I now check every device for TOSLINK connectivity, and find it in surprising places
I need to start using the phrase "what kind of technologically-regressive firm do you think this is?!" more often in my professional life.
"TOSLINK is pushing 40 years old."
So am I.
Damn.
You freakin' whipper-snapper, how dare you make me feel old! Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for bed.
I pushed 40 years old once. You're still wet behind the ears, sonny.
But it's 7:30 in the morning (Reference to a comedian, take a guess which)
Why get out of bed in the first place..
I don’t remember what LED me to this channel but I love it! Alec is really bright. I like how he shines a light on things! I raise my glass to you sir 🍻
Yes, a very illuminating subject to totally reflect on.
If you're so funny, why aren't you famous?
TOS link actually has a lot of advantages for audio, especially around serious entertainment systems with lots of magnets, wires, and electrical noise adjacent.
Many consumers with low to bottom barrel equipment thats not properly shielded would also likely see vast improvements in their sound quality (if you have speakers that constantly have static or background white noise you cannot get rid of, I'm talking about you). TOS link on these low end systems can be a godsend and extremely cheap solution to a lot of sound quality problems that would usually require buying more expensive equipment, when thats likely not an option.
Highly underrated, as a result.
While I agree with you in theory, in practice it has solved a lot of problems, even in the house wiring scenarios I've come across that you mentioned.
Its kind of like a physicist telling an engineer what does or doesnt work on paper, and then the engineer telling the physicist what can actually be done and why.
Gold plated connectors is pretty dumb, though. Will grant you that.
I have an older A/V receiver, and still use TOSLink to connect my Blu-Ray and Laserdisc player to it. For my purposes it works great.
Still using it with my 2003 Yamaha receiver. My 2017 LG TV has a toslink output so everything I put into the TV gets passed through to the receiver over the fibre with DTS/DD5.1 and all. It works great!