2. cables
  3. 167946-147452

Cable help for Mac Mini and TV into a DAC..

I need two inputs to get into active speakers.

1. Mac Mini (for Spotify, Roon, Tidal, and watching my own Plex content, or websites) 
2. Sony TV 

I have a Schiit Modius between these source devices and my active speakers. Logically, direct connection to active speakers should be OK, but putting a Modius in the middle makes a significant difference in the sound, to my ears. I don't know why this happens.  

Anyway, I have a 3.5mm running from the audio jack on Mac Mini to the optical input into Modius. This works well. Now the issue is that my Sony TV has an optical output, which I also want to connect to Modius, but Modius has only ONE optical input. This means I have a few options: 

OPTION 1: 
Modius optical input: from Mac Mini's 3.5mm
Modius coaxial input: from Sony's optical out 

OPTION 2: 
Modius optical input: from Sony's optical out
Modius coaxial input: from Mac Mini's 3.5mm

OPTION 3:
Buy a new DAC which has two optical inputs. Then Mac Mini can remain from 3.5mm to Optical 1, and Sony can go into Optical 2.

My questions: 

  1. For Option 1, I think there's no such cable (optical to coaxial) that would connect Sony's optical out on one end, into the coaxial input on the Modius. Am I missing something?
  2. For Option 2, Sony stuff would be easy in this case, optical to optical, but Mac Mini would be tough: I doubt there's also any cable that connects 3.5mm to coaxial? I found one on Amazon -- https://www.amazon.com/Micca-Premium-SPDIF-Digital-Coaxial/dp/B00V436UQU -- but all the reviews suggest this does not work with Modi and Bifrost, so I doubt it'll work with Modius. 
  3. For Option 3, not sure if there's any DAC in the < US$ 1,000 dollar range that has two optical inputs. Two that come up in search are Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M (which is very hard to find due to production issues), and SMSL M500, which gets very hot I suppose and is a bit slow to ship anyway. Any other high quality DAC that has two optical inputs? 

Thanks! 



julie_priest
yyzsantabarbara
4,829 posts
 
In my office I use a Benchmark DAC3B and it's 2 Toslink inputs for my TV audio and computer audio. I also stream to this DAC via USB. The 2 Toslink inputs sound excellent. If you want to save some cash look for a used BM DAC2 (under $1k) which sounds like the DAC3B. I have had both.

The  Cambridge Audio AXR100 seems to offer 2 Toslink but it also seems like a bit of a noisy unit.

All those conversions you are considering, with a unit likely having a low quality power supply, does not give me confidence that digital nasties (noise, jitter, etc) won't makes it's way into your DAC.
yyzsantabarbara
4,829 posts
 
Here is something that I used 10 years ago to add 3 Toslinks into a DAC with 1 Toslink input. It does not need a power supply.

Amazon.com: Nyrius SW100 Digital Audio Optical Toslink 3 Input Selector Switch Compatible with Fiber Optic Cables, HDTV, Blu-ray DVD player, PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS, XBOX360, PS3: Home Audio & Theater

I have this lying around in the house somewhere. It worked rather well when I was using it.
julie_priest OP
134 posts
 
Super, thank you so much!
More to discover