[SCEvol8]

Optical cables have one big inherrent flaw which will ALWAYS mean I will run RCA's in a car. Opticals are essentially a mirror running the entire length of the cable. If the cable gets a kink in it, that mirror inside can easily crack and distort sound (the cracked mirror isn't sending all the 1's and 0's to the headunit)....bad enough kink and no sound whatsoever. In addition, digital optical and digital coax are utilized to send large amounts of data to a headunit that can decode advanced codecs like Dolby Digital, DTS, TrueHD, and so on. iPod's and CD's do not come encoded with these codecs, thus no need for digital connections. There are options for running a seperate processor to utilize these formats but these are used for source material that utilizes said codecs (i.e. DVD movies). For the car, RCA's are fine....don't run them along the length of the car right alongside the power cable and you should be fine. I've run RCA's up the middle of the vehicle and power along the doors....been doing this for 10 years....never have I had engine noise. BTW....you can use ANY RCA cable as a digital coax....it does the same thing as the overpriced Monster Cable.....just as you can use ANY RCA as a subwoofer cable.