Originally Posted by tim1964:
“Have you tried Poundland? Like HDMI cables digital is digital, optical is optical whether it's £1 or £100”
It is debateable whether any interconnect is truly digital. They can certainly "appear" digital. But if you analyse the switching process at a high enough frequency you'll find the it is still an analogue switch, albeit a vey fast one.
Also, optical cable quality is affected by the quality of the polishing of the end of the cable. I'm not claiming a big difference between £1, £10 and £100 cables because it is impossible to know that without knowing where they are sourced from.
The best anyone can do is suck it and see. The level of errors may not be significant in a £1 cable. What can't be claimed is that all sub £100 optical cables are the same because of the nature of the signal.