Adding TOSLINK passthrough to a DAC that doesn't have it.

[carat]

I have a device that uses the AKM AK4555 chip as its DAC. I want to add a digital passthrough output to it. From what I can tell, the input format for the AK4555 is something called I2S. I can see I2S-to-toslink boards available for sale on the internet. Is it possible to tap the input pins on the AK4555 chip and wire them directly to an I2S-to-toslink unit? Thanks.

 

[mansr]

How are your soldering skills?

 

[Killingbeans]

Possibly. But why go through the trouble?

What device are we talking about, and what do you need the toslink output for?

 

[carat]

How are your soldering skills?

OK-ish

Possibly. But why go through the trouble?

What device are we talking about, and what do you need the toslink output for?

Microsoft removed the TOSLINK port from the Xbox Series consoles. The only USB DAC that is supported by the Xbox is called the Astro Mixamp, which has no digital output and the analog section is awful. I want a clean digital audio signal I can send to a digital mixer, then a quality DAC/AMP.

Optical via TV is not possible because I'm using a monitor. Monitors never come with digital audio outputs, only extremely noisy analog outputs if you're lucky.

HDMI-to-TOSLINK audio extractors are not an option because they don't support VRR (except for the HD Fury VRRoom, which costs a fortune and only supports VRR via HDMI 2.1 FRL, which my current monitor doesn't even have).

If I can crack open an Astro Mixamp and get TOSLINK from that, then that should be an acceptable solution.

 

[AquaVixen]

I know this is an older thread now but I wanted to comment to you. Check out the Turtle Beach Earforce DSS (not the DSS2, it's garbage). I mention this because it's a TOSLINK decoder / audio extractor and it has a "bypass" mode button which disables the Dolby / Surround decoding and switches to a clean signal to pass through. They are commonly found all over ebay used for between $6 <-> $10 right now often with free shipping in the USA. At the very least if you wanted it has a toslink decoder chip inside (AKM AK4117VF) you could de-solder and use for something else. It also is paired with the AKM 4555V1 too. You can google both of these chips and find their datasheets easily online.

 

[carat]

I know this is an older thread now but I wanted to comment to you. Check out the Turtle Beach Earforce DSS (not the DSS2, it's garbage). I mention this because it's a TOSLINK decoder / audio extractor and it has a "bypass" mode button which disables the Dolby / Surround decoding and switches to a clean signal to pass through. They are commonly found all over ebay used for between $6 <-> $10 right now often with free shipping in the USA. At the very least if you wanted it has a toslink decoder chip inside (AKM AK4117VF) you could de-solder and use for something else. It also is paired with the AKM 4555V1 too. You can google both of these chips and find their datasheets easily online.

Thanks for the recommendation. Unfortunately I had to give up on the plan after determining that the MixAmp's Series X support is too buggy to be worth the trouble.

 

[NickArcade]

I know this thread is old, but the Steelseries GameDAC gen 2 (Xbox version) connects natively to Xbox. There's also a gen 1 version that has optical input. I play on Xbox One so I can daisy chain the two together and have both game and chat audio at the same time

 

[NickArcade]

I know this is an older thread now but I wanted to comment to you. Check out the Turtle Beach Earforce DSS (not the DSS2, it's garbage). I mention this because it's a TOSLINK decoder / audio extractor and it has a "bypass" mode button which disables the Dolby / Surround decoding and switches to a clean signal to pass through. They are commonly found all over ebay used for between $6 <-> $10 right now often with free shipping in the USA. At the very least if you wanted it has a toslink decoder chip inside (AKM AK4117VF) you could de-solder and use for something else. It also is paired with the AKM 4555V1 too. You can google both of these chips and find their datasheets easily online.

How does one go about soldering this to the Astro mixamp or Steelseries GameDAC? They both contain firmware.

 

[MRC01]

If you need to convert SPDIF coax to optical, or split 1 -> 2: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HKJH28W
I've tried other similar boxes which were unreliable. That one has been working reliably for the past few months at rates up to 192-24.

PS: regarding the OP's question: put one of those just upstream from the DAC to split the SPDIF signal, one to the DAC, the other to wherever you want.