USB to Optical? - Page 2

This is true. I just tried to get optical out from a Mac and only after I put the miniplug toslink cable into the headphone jack did it autodetect the optical and turn on a red LED when I removed the optical cable.

When I think of some of the conversions I'd like to be able to do 'on-the-fly', it rapidly becomes apparent that I need a second computer with a serious soundcard in it - cheaper just to buy another DAC .....

The Turtle Beach Audio Advantage under C-media's implementation is bit perfect. This can be tested by passing through DTS to an external decoder. Only bit perfect transmission can decode DTS.

The TBAAM however IS NOT bitperfect when you install their driver. For getting bitperfect transmission you have to ensure that you simply plug in the device and let windows install the drivers automatically as C-media audio driver. DO NOT install the turtle beach software.

There is a definite audible difference between bitperfect implementations and imprefect implementations. However, between the C-media and some dedicated devices like M2tech or Musliand, I am not so sure. Maybe there is some improvement, but I am yet to be convinced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by edwinwijnja 

In the sound options part of windows, there are 2 possible outputs:

- Speakers

- Digital Audio S/PDIF

But no visible digital output on my laptop.

 

Does this imply I have the toslink output in my headphone jack?

S/PDIF can also go through a USB port, so I reluctantly say no. There is an Asus laptop that has optical out though.
 

USB audio is limited to 24/96Khz and optical / toslink is up to however much bandwidth you can cram into fiberoptic cable.  I think currently most computers can't process more than 192Khz/24bit, at least none that have seen. Correct me if I am wrong.

Actually I have had some problems with getting S/PDIF to work properly on VLC on Mac. If there is a song encoded at more than 96Khz the system either Kernal panics and shuts down or gives a massive amount of distortion. VLC nor the DAC can down sample.

I have also run into problems with playing back MKVs encoded (ripped) from blue ray as the audio channel is encrypted for Dolby 5.1.  When I moved to TOS/LINK all my problems were solved.   

         GO TOSLINK, less problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by edwinwijnja 

In the sound options part of windows, there are 2 possible outputs:

- Speakers

- Digital Audio S/PDIF

But no visible digital output on my laptop.

 

Does this imply I have the toslink output in my headphone jack?

Yes, if Windows shows those options then it is safe to say that your head-out doubles if you don't have a separate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuckabroad81 

USB audio is limited to 24/96Khz and optical / toslink is up to however much bandwidth you can cram into fiberoptic cable.  I think currently most computers can't process more than 192Khz/24bit, at least none that have seen. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Actually I have had some problems with getting S/PDIF to work properly on VLC on Mac. If there is a song encoded at more than 96Khz the system either Kernal panics and shuts down or gives a massive amount of distortion. VLC nor the DAC can down sample.

I have also run into problems with playing back MKVs encoded (ripped) from blue ray as the audio channel is encrypted for Dolby 5.1.  When I moved to TOS/LINK all my problems were solved.   

         GO TOSLINK, less problems.

uh, wrong, usb can and does go to 192 so far and may soon go to 384.  Optical can also handle higher bandwidths, it is just that the os of many computers does not.  And lots of computers can and do process 192.

On a Mac with optical out you are limited on most models to 96 not sure what you men about problems with spdif, since I am not ware of any macs with a coax or aes spdif built in??

Grab a quality USB cable and a Teralink X2 and that will give you Coax for later use and the Optical you want.  You can also use a seperate power input on this device.  They are really good for the price but there are other USB to S/pdif converters out there also.

The M-Audio Transit does really well for USB to Optical.  It's about $60.

The only negative thing I have to say about it is that the Windows Vista drivers are crap.  Under XP or MacOS it is rock solid though.  (I haven't tried it with Win7).

Well that doesnt really matter. Dont u remember a thread some time ago that says humans cannot hear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit or 44.1khz and 192khz?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bixby 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuckabroad81 

USB audio is limited to 24/96Khz and optical / toslink is up to however much bandwidth you can cram into fiberoptic cable.  I think currently most computers can't process more than 192Khz/24bit, at least none that have seen. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Actually I have had some problems with getting S/PDIF to work properly on VLC on Mac. If there is a song encoded at more than 96Khz the system either Kernal panics and shuts down or gives a massive amount of distortion. VLC nor the DAC can down sample.

I have also run into problems with playing back MKVs encoded (ripped) from blue ray as the audio channel is encrypted for Dolby 5.1.  When I moved to TOS/LINK all my problems were solved.   

         GO TOSLINK, less problems.

uh, wrong, usb can and does go to 192 so far and may soon go to 384.  Optical can also handle higher bandwidths, it is just that the os of many computers does not.  And lots of computers can and do process 192.

 

On a Mac with optical out you are limited on most models to 96 not sure what you men about problems with spdif, since I am not ware of any macs with a coax or aes spdif built in??

Quote:

Originally Posted by yifu 

Well that doesnt really matter. Dont u remember a thread some time ago that says humans cannot hear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit or 44.1khz and 192khz?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bixby 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuckabroad81 

USB audio is limited to 24/96Khz and optical / toslink is up to however much bandwidth you can cram into fiberoptic cable.  I think currently most computers can't process more than 192Khz/24bit, at least none that have seen. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Actually I have had some problems with getting S/PDIF to work properly on VLC on Mac. If there is a song encoded at more than 96Khz the system either Kernal panics and shuts down or gives a massive amount of distortion. VLC nor the DAC can down sample.

I have also run into problems with playing back MKVs encoded (ripped) from blue ray as the audio channel is encrypted for Dolby 5.1.  When I moved to TOS/LINK all my problems were solved.   

         GO TOSLINK, less problems.

uh, wrong, usb can and does go to 192 so far and may soon go to 384.  Optical can also handle higher bandwidths, it is just that the os of many computers does not.  And lots of computers can and do process 192.

 

On a Mac with optical out you are limited on most models to 96 not sure what you men about problems with spdif, since I am not ware of any macs with a coax or aes spdif built in??

 

It's arguable whether humans can hear higher sampling rates.  There is no conclusive proof either way, and discussing it just turns into circular arguments that have been covered before.  I have the honest belief that I can hear the difference between 44.1K and 48K.  But even if we can't, the advantage of 24x96 files are that they are often mastered better.  If your card doesn't support them, you can't play them back without downsampling.

USB Audio will absolutely support 24x96.  The Transit card I mentioned two posts up is one of the cards that will do it.

Also, Toslink is a cable format, not an encoding format.  You can transmit SPDIF over Toslink.

Now that I've explored my new Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD, I'm satisfied that it can get get USB to S/PDIF, up to 24/96, which is the maximum my Sony TA-9000ES preamp's digital receiver  will accept from it's DVD toslink input. But, I've gotta tell ya, whether it's 44.1, 48 or 96 -16 or 24, I'm not sure I can discern any difference in sound between these from my high end system. In fact, comparing computer "anything" with playback of vinyl, CD, and SACD, SACD seems to still sound as good as I've heard.