The audio frontier is all abuzz these days with the pleasure possible though HDMI, USB, FireWire and Ethernet connections. However, these current generation digital technologies are only part of the story, just as the challenge of designing, manufacturing and choosing the best analog interconnects and speaker cables is as important as ever. The S/P-DIF (Sony Philips Digital InterFace), which arrived in 1983 along with the CD, is still very much a part of our world today. S/P-DIF is transmitted through Digital Coax and Toslink fiber optics (EIA-J), making them still some of the most important cables in electronic entertainment. While, thanks to HDMI, Toslink is not so often used to connect a DVD player to an A/V receiver, Toslink connectors are common on cable-boxes, TV sets, subwoofers, all sorts of products. And now, the 3.5mm Mini Optical connector, also somewhat incorrectly known as Mini-Toslink, is everywhere … from the 3.5mm dual-purpose headphone jack on a Mac laptop, to inputs on some of the finest portables. For these many reasons, AudioQuest has refined and renewed their line of serious high performance OptiLink cables.