SU-1 DAC + Sonos Connect or TV not working

[lixi]

Hello: )

I have an issue with my S.M.S.L SU-1 DAC.

I have the following devices:
- Sonos Connect Gen2
- Bluetooth Receiver: Advance Paris WTX-1100
- TV: LG OLED55B29LA
- DAC: S.M.S.L SU-1
- Toslink Digital Audio Cable
- Cinch Coaxial Audio Cable

The following setups work all the time:
WTX1100 -> Toslink Cable -> SU-1
WTX1100 -> Cinch Cable -> SU-1
Sonos Connect -> toslink or cinch cable and DAC (I dont know the type) at my friends place

--> So the cables, Sonos and SU-1 are working properly in principle.

BUT, when I try the following setups, i have issues:
Sonos Connect -> Toslink Cable/Cinch Cable -> SU-1
The SU-1 is blinking for most of the time and I have no sound. Sometimes (like every 5-10 minutes) the LED is on all the time. In that case the setup works, I can hear sound. But only for half a minute or something like that. Afterwards it starts blinking again and no sound.

TV -> Toslink Cable -> SU-1
The SU-1 is blinking all the time and I have no sound.

Has anyone an idea, what could be a reason for that? All components work in general. But the SU-1 does not work with the TV or Sonos.

Thanks in advance,
Felix

 

[Nutul]

1. what exactly do you mean with "Digital Cable"?
2. what exactly do you mean with "some random cable and DAC at my friend's place"?

 

[lixi]

Ah, sorry
1. Amazon Basics Toslink optical audio cable
2. It is a while ago, that I tested the sonos connect there. I am not sure if it was a toslink optical audio cable or a cinch cable. And I dont know which DAC it was. But at least I know 100%, that I used the digital outputs of the sonos, and it worked fine

(I gonna update my first posting with that info)

 

[Count Dacula]

LG TVs have sync issues. You can try a different input thru a HDMI audio extractor, for instance

 

[unpluggged]

LG TVs have sync issues.

They don't. Crappy Toslink receivers do.

 

[voodooless]

They don't. Crappy Toslink receivers do.

That’s rather upside down reasoning. If these things tend to work with everything, except LG TV’s, guess what is to blame…

The idiotic up to 500ns jitter these things poop out is way beyond the original intent of the interface design. No receiver should be expected to cope with that. That some still do is nice, but no reason to think all devices should.

 

[unpluggged]

If these things tend to work with everything, except LG TV’s, guess what is to blame…

But IME the opposite is true: these receivers are known to have problems with various sources. OTOH, I have no problem with my LG G4 OLED TV's optical output connected to either the miniDSP Flex, to the ADI-2 Pro FS R, or even to Fiio BR13 (albeit I did not test the latter extensively, it just worked for a few hours that I was playing around with it). So at least there are a) devices that are immune to jitte; or b) LG TVs that don't have so severely out of spec outputs.

 

[voodooless]

So at least there are a) devices that are immune to jitte; or

Well, yes, so much is clear: some handle it better than others, and frankly, some devices are indeed not immune enough as well. For instance, Topping switched the SPDIF receiver after the AKM fire, and the new device was clearly inferior.

b) LG TVs that don't have so severely out of spec outputs.

The trouble is: the IEC 61937 standard does not specify an upper jitter bound. So technically, those devices are not out of spec.

 

[Nutul]

Just to pour some more gas to the fire: TVs are not meant / built to be a source of hi-fi equipment...

 

[unpluggged]

Just to pour some more gas to the fire: TVs are not meant / built to be a source of hi-fi equipment...

In my own home and with my own money, it's up to me to decide what is meant and what is not meant to be a source of "Hi-Fi" (whatever that means) equipment Or next someone will say that a computer (in any shape or form) is not meant to be a source of Hi-Fi equipment, so let's go back to physical media then (preferably analog). A plastic plate that makes sound by scraping a needle over its surface is a proper Hi-Fi source?

That being said, most TVs now have USB ports and many support UAC (not LG, unfortunately), so there might be some luck. Either way, when I'm going to spend such amount of money on a TV, I don't care how its Toslink output will sync to a cheap DAC/amp/streamer/processor/whatever. It's not the deciding factor, by far. I won't mind applying some workaround or just get a different audio device instead of the one with the picky Toslink receiver. At least I know that my particular equipment (the miniDSP and, while I waited for the former to arrive, the RME) does work with my particular TV. Perhaps it's because the engineering effort behind these products.

 

[Count Dacula]

I got mine, working on a mid-range LG TV just fine. I use YouTube Music almost exclusively.