craig4755 Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Hello everyone, I'm new to Computer Audiophile and this is my first post. I have two receivers-one in my office with my Mac Pro and a second in my living room. My dilemma is that I am feeding both of the receivers via Toslink cable but have only one port on the tower. I only plan to use one receiver at a time. It's a pain to keep switching the cables in the back of the Mac, and I'm afraid I'll bugger-up either the port or the cable ends if I keep switching them. I'd like to stay with the Toslink cables, as I've already gone through the hassle of running them through the walls, floors, etc. I stopped by the local Apple store where they recommended using a DJ mixing board with two Toslink outs versus adding a second PCIe card and trying to get that to work in conjunction with the built-in optical out. This seemed like overkill-more complicated than necessary and possibly compromising the sound quality. I've been considering a cheap mechanical Toslink switching device (I assume it uses mirrors), but I'm sure that would only be a short term fix, if it works at all. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Oh, and the cheaper the better! Craig Link to comment
Mr.C Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Hi there, Welcome to the site, I'm surprised that your post has gone unnoticed for this long. Try using an airport express for the lesser receiver. I say the lesser one because some claim that the airport express degrades the sound by introducing jitter and converting files on the fly; however, it is bit perfect and it sounds great to my ears through my friend's lavry black dac. This way you can select which output (or both) from itunes. Link to comment
craig4755 Posted February 14, 2009 Author Share Posted February 14, 2009 Thanks for the reply. I thought maybe I had the plague... Anyway, Since I have a Mac Pro, I'll need both a card for the tower as well as the airport express. As the secondary receiver in my office is actually just my old, inexpensive home theater dvd player, I might just dig up my old Griffin iMic and just use the analog output from that for stereo sound. I'm sure there will be no difference in the sound quality from the inexpensive speakers. Craig Link to comment
Alex McF Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Craig, If you are in the UK, then Maplin has this: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33712 It's only £7.99. What the implications, if any, are for signal quality, I do not know. Hope this helps. Alex Alex Link to comment
craig4755 Posted February 14, 2009 Author Share Posted February 14, 2009 Hey Alex, Thanks for the input! I ordered one of these from Amazon (I needed an additional $5.00 item added to my purchase for free shipping.) As it splits the signal in half, I couldn't get it to work at all on any optical device. I guess I got the results I expected for $5.00! Craig Link to comment
Alex McF Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Craig, Sorry for the poor input on the output(s)! Well, $5.00 is less than £7.99. But very frustrating all the same and warning to others on these forums. Alex Alex Link to comment
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