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Noob question #547: What's the optical out for?

post #1 of 9
10/7/08 at 10:00pm
Thread Starter 
Heh. So, MacBooks come with an optical out. What's it for? I know some amp/DACs can be plugged into it, thereby freeing a USB slot. But besides that, what's it good for? Does it provide better SQ than the headphone out or something?
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post #2 of 9
10/7/08 at 10:03pm
You can pipe the audio in to a DAC or use it to send the DTS or Dolby Digital out to a decoder.

It could provide better sq depending on the device you are sending the audio to.
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post #3 of 9
10/7/08 at 10:14pm
Full question is what is the Optical "S/PDIF" output for? Well, S/PDIF is a streaming protocol for digital audio. Therefore, it's to send digital audio from your computer (or any other digital data source) to a DAC.
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post #4 of 9
10/8/08 at 12:26am
Yes, if plugged into a good external DAC like a Benchmark DAC1, it will provide much better SQ than the analog where the DAC is an afterthought. Keep in mind Macs are pretty much standard equipment among musicians, Apple is just returning the favor. You would get the same benefits from a USB DAC, however.
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post #5 of 9
10/8/08 at 1:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by majid View Post
Yes, if plugged into a good external DAC like a Benchmark DAC1, it will provide much better SQ than the analog where the DAC is an afterthought. Keep in mind Macs are pretty much standard equipment among musicians, Apple is just returning the favor. You would get the same benefits from a USB DAC, however.
Uhm... what?
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post #6 of 9
10/8/08 at 12:37pm
i'm sort of thinking the opposite way of jonathon jong. i want to free up my headphone jack ( i have a macbook pro) and i have a portable amp that can be doubled as a usb dac, i plug it in with a usb cables, i hear nothing. do i have to install anything?
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post #7 of 9
10/8/08 at 1:15pm
Its for hooking up an external DAC, which most likely are of higher quality than the built in one. The MacBook don't even have a line-out, so besides USB the other option are the headphone out.
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post #8 of 9
10/8/08 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by krmathis View Post
Its for hooking up an external DAC, which most likely are of higher quality than the built in one. The MacBook don't even have a line-out, so besides USB the other option are the headphone out.
you can't disable the extra gain?

like, most systems have a mic/line-in shared port, and you disable the gain applied so it works as line in, that doesn't work with the headphone out? (just thinking outloud here)


as far as why the other poster is getting no sound, is the device enabled for output? (the system does need to be aware of its connection, although with any modern PnP, you should (in theory) be good to go, but i'd just double check the audio settings to be sure)
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post #9 of 9
10/8/08 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by obobskivich View Post
you can't disable the extra gain?

like, most systems have a mic/line-in shared port, and you disable the gain applied so it works as line in, that doesn't work with the headphone out? (just thinking outloud here)
You can certainly adjust the gain. But it will always run through the built-in headphone amplifier, and also through the software volume control.
Clearly not a clean line-out.
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