I'm not totally convinced that I can tell much difference between a standard audio cable and the fiber optic... I use all the monster junk but I'm not really sure why. It's as nice of a cable as any, I just wouldn't expect to see a HUGE difference in sound quality.

With this connector and its video counterpart, you can turn your regular XBOX into a (reasonably) HD system. Annoying that you have to buy these separately when most of the time you'd want to get both.

5.1 sounds the exact same on any fully functionaly Toslink cable. The hook here is that if you have monster component cables like I do, they force you to buy this obcenely long and over packaged cable.

A fully functional toslink is $7 on a bad day. $25+ for this "shielded" toslink is absurd. In fact longer optical cables are a bad thing and can cause problems. Its an absolute must buy if you bought the monster components like I did, there is no standard toslink out, you need the adapter, which is conveniently packaged w/ this cable. What a coincidence.

Sadly because Microsoft stopped manufacturing their HDTV AV pack, Monster is the only one I have found that supports 5.1 AND has no signal loss at 720. 98% of 3rd party component cables either lack 5.1 or have signal loss higher than 480p.

I bought this cable before reading all the reviews. Once I read them I became nervous that I was going to have many problems with it. What I found out when I got it is that most of the people who gave it bad reviews either didn't have an understanding of how it is supposed to be used, or didn't install it correctly. Maybe I'm wrong and there really was a bad batch of cables going around but here is some information that will help you avoid any problems with it.

*Take off the clear plastic caps on both ends (If you don't you won't be able to get 5.1 surround).
*Make sure everything is securly fastened.
*Turn Dolby Digital and DTS on in the audio options menu of the Xbox.
*When your Xbox is on with no game in it, it dosen't put out 5.1 even with the cable. So if you turn on your xbox once you've hooked the cable up and your reciver says its only going through 2 channels, don't panic, its supposed to do that.
*Most importantly many xbox games don't support dolby digital (5.1). Infact most don't, and it is impossible to get 5.1 surround out of a game that dosen't support it. So check the back of the game where its says the number of players and xbox live info. If a green box says "In Game Dolby Digital" you will get 5.1 surround with this cable. If not, you will only get 2 channels and a sub. So check the game first.
*May not be vital, but unplug your RCA audio from your tv or your reciver before you hook this up.

I hope this information helps. Don't let the few bad reviews scare you from buying this. If used correctly it will give you amazing sound. It is truly worth the money.

Don't buy these for the Gamelink 200 X, chances are that it won't work like it should.

I've had my Gamelink 200 X cables for around 2 years. I recently happened to buy a 5.1 system, so I decided to buy the Lightwave 100 X toslink cable from Monster Cable.

When I set everthing up and turned on my XBOX, I went to the audio settings only to find out that my Gamlink 200 X and Lightwave 100 X didn't unlock the Dolby Digital/DTS menu. I still only saw the "Mono, Stereo, Dolby Surrond" menu. Therefore, it transmites the signal as PCM Stereo, and not Dolby Digital or DTS.

I contacted Timothy Pryde from Monster Cable to see if he could send me a replacement 200 X cable. He did, and that cable didn't work either. So I contacted him again, and he sent me another 200 X cable, that one didn't work either to my surprise.

After trying the second he sent, I just gave up, and asked him if he could just send me a Monster Video cable, so I could just buy Microsoft's Advanced AV pack. He said that was just fine.

Right now I'm waiting for a UPS slip to be e-mailed to me so I can send back the two cables he sent me. And when he recieves the cables, he said he will send me the Monster video cable.

He was really helpful, and all in all, I'm very happy with the outcome; he let me keep my Gamelink 200 X incase I need to use my XBOX with a TV set/system that doesn't have an optical input. And he said he was going to thoroughly test the Gamelink 200 X cables to see what's the problem. He said he wasn't aware of this problem before, and mentioned it as being "weird".

I gave the Lightwave 100 X 5 stars because it is a solid cable that works perfectly without the Gamelink 200 X

Hopefully, Monster cable will find the problem, and ship newly designed Gamlink 200 X cables.