HDMI and optical fiber exactly who has the better sound quality

When you need to connect a newly purchased Soundbar or AV receiver to a device in your home, you are bound to have two main audio lines connected: HDMI and fiber. Perhaps for most users, HDMI is actually the simplest choice, but if you understand the characteristics of the fiber audio cable, it might not be easy to choose the HDMI way to connect. In general, both HDMI and fiber have their own advantages and disadvantages in the way they connect to each other.

HDMI and optical fiber audio connectors are the means of transmission between devices, and are more advanced than the traditional red and white analog signal transmission, and support multi-channel sound transmission like Dolby Digital stereo. In addition, whether it is HDMI or fiber optic audio line, the cost is very cheap.

The biggest difference between the two is that the HDMI audio cable can transmit higher quality sound, including Blu-ray audio, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio Audio encoding. Audio from these formats cannot be passed on a fibre optic cable. In addition, HDMI can also directly transmit video signal. So it's easy to say that if you want to pass all the content through a cable, HDMI is the best choice.

However, depending on the different equipment, HDMI is sometimes not the best choice, if your family's equipment has a certain age, and just need to sound bar such a simple sound output device to connect to the TV, then the fiber audio is a good way to connect. In this case, sometimes the only option is not to worry too much about HDMI. For most simple sound devices, fiber and HDMI are actually the same in effect.

In one case, if you have a sound bar device that supports surround sound like Sonos Playbar or Vizio s4251w-b, you cannot connect directly to the TV with a fiber-optic audio cable. But usually these sound bar have no HDMI interface, the best way is to direct the TV audio source and sound bar with fiber, and skip the TV.

However, regardless of which device you are using, as described above, the fiber-optic audio cable is not able to transmit high quality sound such as Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master audio. But the difference in sound quality is not as obvious as you might think. Although HDMI can deliver a better sound, but we also need a certain quality of speakers, power amplifier equipment to work together to play a role. and simply rely on HDMI cable to improve the quality of the effect is not obvious.

On the whole, the use of HDMI is not only inexpensive, but also can be a line of multiple use, while transmitting video and sound signals. However, if your old device does not support the HDMI interface, and your sound source is not as high as the blue light, then the fiber audio cable can also meet the requirements. In addition, even if you use an HDMI connection, but the quality of other devices is not followed, even Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master audio Such a sound source, there will be no significant improvement.