I'll add one thing to that argument, re: coax vs optical...I was using a soundcard with a coax output. For some reason (I think it's the wool fabric on my couch), there seems to be a ton of static electricity in my room. I used to get shocked alot. Whenever I would touch ANYTHING and produce a static electric shock(when I say anything, it could be the door, a light switch, etc), , the coaxial signal would drop out for a moment. Very wierd, and very irritating. I pulled out my multimeter and checked the grounding in all of my outlets and all of my components and the whole nine yards, couldn't quite figure it out. I went out and spent some money on a decent line conditioner (monster power HT5100). The wierd static electricity problem didn't quite go away, but it got much better. I still had a problem with the audio dropping out momentarily on occasion though. I then got a soundcard with an optical output, and never had another dropout at all. I don't know if this would really ever be a differentiating factor for anyone else, my static electricity problem is probably a highly isolated incident. But it's worth noting that a coaxial digital bitstream is much more sensitive to outside influences (i.e. RF interference, etc) than optical is.