Cheapest transparent DAC with optical?

[M00ndancer]

My house thermostats are on schedule, and my summers reach 120F, with indoor temps hovering around 100F while I'm at work. In those instances, CCA sometimes freeze up. Requiring a power cycle before it starts working. Sometimes the power cycles causes it to turn off "full dynamic range".

Ok,
I suspect your use case is a bit extreme.
If the CCA freeze up then they have overheated. If you do a power cycle before they have a chance to cool off, then I would think that any thing can trigger resets.
I live in much colder part of the world, and none of my CCAs hang or reset the HDR setting, even after power cycle.

Also when you first setup a CCA, or do a factory reset, it'll also turn it off. I've observed this behavior in 4 separate units.

But when CCA is connected to an external DAC by optical. It'll always use full dynamic range mode, even when it's greyed out in the Google home settings

The second issue is by design so I find it hard to fault the unit.

 

[bigx5murf]

And I thought it got hot here.

Where are you?

Las Vegas

The original Chromecast HDMI dongle is even worst. It can get uncomfortable to even hold in your hand. Lots of times I thought it was dead for good. But would start working again after cooling down.

 

[Lifer]

Does anyone know how the Volume Control is handled while using CCA ?
Is it done through the DAC chip (AK4430 24bit) or with the software sending the signal to the CCA ?

I was planning on this set-up: Volumio=>RaspberryPi=>Hifiberry DAC+pro or Topping D10=>Power amp
And use Volumio to pilot the 32bit volume control of the DAC chip.

Using Amazon music or Qobuz on my phone sending to the CCA, directly connected to the power amp, will I see a loss due to Volume Control ?

Thank you

 

[Jungstar]

I guess I don't need it to be that transparent. A kardas board would be fine if it supported optical. Anything better as in cheaper than a topping D10? or would it be worth it just to spend a bit more for DX3pro?

This will primarily be for a chromecast audio.

I thought you means those plastic houses aka "Transparent" DACs that is made from a Raberry Pi... .

 

[spiritofjerry]

For those who still use disc players an optical input somewhere is still very useful.

I still need optical for my TV. Optical is still a primary audio out format on every modern television.