What is a coaxial digital audio output?

Coaxial digital audio output is an audio technology that delivers 5.1 discrete audio channels from a media source device to a receiver. The source device can be anything from a set-top cable box to a Blu-ray player, while the receiver is typically a television or speaker system.

Coaxial digital audio output is transported from source to destination devices via a digital cable. This cable is an upgrade from older RCA cables, which were unable to transmit the unprocessed audio of a 5.1 surround sound track that required decoding and amplification at the receiving end. The coaxial digital audio cable has a RCA interconnect on each end, which plugs into the orange outputs on the source and receiver devices.