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Toslink from TV to DAC???

I'm ready to purchase a new LED flatscreen TV for my den. I'm noticing that the only audio out from the TV's are now mostly digital toslink connections. Has anyone tried or currently have the setup using a toslink cable from the TV to a DAC? I guess my concern is the time loss going through additional equipment and actually hearing a voice a second after it was spoken. (I hate reading lips)

Many thanks
jaguar
tsciame
88 posts
 
No worries, but some sources will sound louder than others will. I run the cable box, blue-ray player and xbox 360 into the TV using HDMI, from the TV to the DAC using a 20 foot glass toslink cable.

No noticeable delay at all.
cappuccino
124 posts
 
I run toslink from my new Samsung LED TV into the DAC card in my Accuphase integrated amplifier. Works excellent.
mistercrash
20 posts
 
I've tried running both Toslink and coax digital output from my cable box to my DAC, and it was a horrific failure both ways. I tried this with both a CI Audio VDA-2 and a Wadia 781i, and with both DACs, I got this annoying loud fluttering sound that would not go away. Moreover, I tried this with two different cable boxes (both the same model) in two different locations, and had the same results. I guess Comcast doesn't want me to use their digital audio.

It's probably worth a try, but there's a chance that it might not work.
dsutfin
6 posts
 
Mistercrash,

The reason you are getting that noise is your cable box is outputting a 5.1 signal (Dolby/DTS) and you are trying to convert it with a 2 channel DAC. The two aren't compatible. The cable box needs to be able to downsample to stereo PCM in order for that set-up to work.

I had the same problem and what I had to do was connect the cable box to my tv using HDMI and then use the toslink output on my TV to a stereo DAC. This worked because my TV only outputs stereo (no multi-channel) through toslink.
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