Selecting HDMI or Optical for your sound system.

When you possess a sound system, or a professional karaoke equipment, you may be wondering when to use the communication connections for your device: HDMI or Optical (optical port). Optimal advice given is HDMI, because HDMI is very common in today’s devices such as TVs, karaoke, DVD, set top box, … However, in some cases, no port HDMI, the Optical ports can be the perfect alternative.

The Basic
Both HDMI and Optical signals are transmitted from the digital audio device to another device. Both are a lot better than analog (red and white cables). HDMI and optical audio output allows multiple channels in (channel) similar to Dolby Digital and is now relatively cheap.

Different

The main difference is that HDMI can output audio at a higher quality, including audio standard used on Blu-ray discs as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. These formats can not be transmitted through the optical port. Besides, HDMI allows transmission of video signals. So, just one single cable, you can transfer content, including audio and video between devices, this case will be selected HDMI top.

Selection depends on the device.

However, the choice depends on your device, not everyone owned devices equipped with HDMI port. For example, you have a certain old equipment, CD player, for example, want to connect to the speaker, while the only one optical port. Or you have everything connected to the TV, you just want to output sound, in this case, the optical port will be selected to be a priority, you are not confused in choosing HDMI or optical, work separately optical audio output port for the quality it almost HDMI comment on the relative level.

So if the device is used with both HDMI and optical 2, why?
If the device is equipped with both HDMI and optical, use HDMI immediately and always. One example: both Playbar Sonos sound system and Vizio S4251w-B4 is integrated surround sound, optical audio port will not have the ability to export a full sound as HDMI.