Optical connection

[Yorkshire Mouth]

I remember years ago, optical was capped and could t handle hi-red audio. I can’t remember the limit, but I think it couldn’t do 24/192. And now it can.

May I ask, that’s great for the input on a DAC, but what about output on say a Blu-ray Disc player, or a DAP? Can they (and do they regularly) output up to 24/192 over optical?

Thank you.

 

[_thelaughingman]

I was researching this recently for my Panasonic Blu-ray player and found this tiny bit of information in the user manual.

OPTICAL Down Sampling Set the maximum sampling frequency to be used when outputting down-sampled audio from the OPTICAL terminal. ≥ Set a frequency supported by the connected device. ≥ When playing back BD-Video, signals are converted to 48 kHz despite the settings in the following cases: – when the signals have a sampling frequency of 192 kHz – when the disc has copy protection – when “BD-Video Secondary Audio” is set to

Seems like optical output has to be down sampled due to bandwidth limitation? Unsure if that's always true in the case of a 2 channel implementation.

 

[LTig]

I remember years ago, optical was capped and could t handle hi-red audio. I can’t remember the limit, but I think it couldn’t do 24/192. And now it can.

It depends on the transmitter and receiver devices, the cable characteristics and its length, the number of channels and the transmission protocol (SPDIF, ADAT).

May I ask, that’s great for the input on a DAC, but what about output on say a Blu-ray Disc player, or a DAP? Can they (and do they regularly) output up to 24/192 over optical?

I fear you have to read the specs of each (sender and receiver).

 

[Vincent Kars]

Depends
The Toslink standard says 2 channel 24 bit 96 kHz PCM audio is the max.
Modern hardware often performs much better. Depending on both sender and receiver 192 might simply work.

 

[tmtomh]

I used to have a few dozen albums on my computer music streamer in 24/176 and 24/192 format. I've used that setup with USB, coax, and optical connections over the years, with three different optical cables of widely varying quality based on what they looked like and the physical condition they were in, and I never had a problem. Granted I was only doing a 3-6 foot run.

 

[Mnyb]

If you need toslink optical simply downconvert to 24/96 so it always work for you .

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Officially 24/96 is the max throughput supported. Lots of combinations of transmitter, receiver work flawlessly at 24/192. Personally I've never had any issues over the last decade or so with lots of different bits of kit.

Given there's no benefit between 24/96 and 24/192 Toslink is fine.

 

[Jukka]

I've used 24/192 optical on devices that were specced for only 24/96. It worked most of the time, but sometimes the receiver could not sync to the signal and garbled noise came out.

 

[Yuhasz01]

Use Onkyo as a cd transport, with optical cable, running into a RME dac. No problems with24/96 or 192.

 

[DonDish]

I really cant see the point of running 192khz from a disc. Is there a special reason?

I have RME to RME. 192 khz over optical spdif is no problem. It could probably go higher. 200 khz/pcm is max for my system. I havent tested but spec should include send/recive, via all I/O.

 

[tmtomh]

I really cant see the point of running 192khz from a disc. Is there a special reason?

I have RME to RME. 192 khz over optical spdif is no problem. It could probably go higher. 200 khz/pcm is max for my system. I havent tested but spec should include send/recive, via all I/O.

I don't see a point either. But some DVD-A discs have 24/192 content on them. In the mid-2000s, for example, Classic Records put out "HDADs," which if memory serves were two-sided DVDs with a 24/96 DVD-video layer (with audio content only) on one side, and a 24/192 DVD-A layer on the other side. I used to own one, because at the time it was reputedly the best-sounding version of the album in question. I don't have it anymore because I found a different mastering (on a regular redbook CD) that I prefer.

So regardless of the merits, some folks do own such discs and will therefore have experience playing them over an optical connection, which experience they can report here as @Yuhasz01 has.

 

[DonDish]

I have 4 dvd-a I bought back in mid 2000 or whenever this was popular. My SONY surround reciever didnt have a problem. Nice sound too. Mostly play from CD or lap nowaday. I tried to play them a year ago, but couldnt find scart input at my Samsung frame for menu. So I just put it away. Gonna check if PS4 can take it. DVD-A was nice but it never took off.