Toslink

Overview

The term "Toslink" is used to describe a form of optical digital interconnect which was originally developed by Toshiba Corporate for interconnection of their consumer digital audio equipment. The physical format was later adopted by other manufacturers for similar stereo PCM applications, as well as multichannel and surround formats.

History

Toslink is a registered trademark of the Toshiba Corporation and was originally developed to connect their CD players to their receivers. Other CD player manufacturers quickly adapted the format as it offered the advantage of eliminating the possibility of interference caused by interconnection of “grounds” in unbalanced electrical. When Alesis developed their multichannel ADAT format for recording digital audio, they adapted the interconnect format for multi-channel transmission. Other digital audio continue to use the ADAT Lightpipe standard as a low cost solution for interconnection of multi-channel equipment such as computer digital audio interfaces and multi-channel converter units or digital consoles. DVD players use a similar connection for surround as well as stereo connections.

Basics

The physical connector is the JIS F05 type