Toslink switch

[lecriquet]

Hello,
I did not find an answer in this forum, but I may have missed the information.

In my project I would like to connect several (3: Chromecast Audio / TV / Macbook) devices with optical/toslink output to a DAC with only 1 optical input.
Do you know any qualitative device that could help to switch, automatically or via a knob or a button, between the 3 sources?

There are some switch on amazon/aliexpress which could do the job, but general quality is a question.

Best

 

[Chazz6]

See

toslink switch | Newegg.com

Search Newegg.com for toslink switch. Get fast shipping and top-rated customer service.

www.newegg.com

 

[lecriquet]

Thanks.
Not sure to understand your answer because I did find switches on amazon and aliexpress.
Basically my question was: are there better switches than others regarding 1/ overall reliability 2/ signal fidelity?

 

[maverickronin]

Basically my question was: are there better switches than others regarding 1/ overall reliability 2/ signal fidelity?

Long term reliability might be a bit difficult to research on such a niche product, but you don't need to work about fidelity since it's digital. It's essentially always either working perfectly or obviously broken, without any in between.

 

[lecriquet]

Well, I didn't know it was a niche product.
I thought many people had several optical devices.
The gap between a DAC with 1 optical input (ex: topping dx3pro+ at 200€) and 2 (SMSL m500 at 400€) is quite huge.

 

[MRC01]

I use a toslink switch, as @maverickronin says, it's digital so the data is either there or it's not. The only important switch attributes are how many ports it can switch, and the max data rate it can handle. Some don't handle 192-24. Worst case scenario the switch might introduce jitter, but any well engineered downstream device corrects for that with its own buffer and clock.

 

[maverickronin]

Well, I didn't know it was a niche product.
I thought many people had several optical devices.
The gap between a DAC with 1 optical input (ex: topping dx3pro+ at 200€) and 2 (SMSL m500 at 400€) is quite huge.

I totally get why you'd need one. I use an old school composite video switch for coax S/PDIF. It's just that those connections are slowly loosing popularity in consumer devices and pretty much any large online store you care to name is full of the same handful of rebranded OEM designs.

If you needed to switch both coax and optical or just wanted something fancy, I've heard good thing about this one.

Personally, if I just needed to switch optical sources I'd just get one of the cheap from some place like Amazon with a good return policy and return it if it didn't work in my setup.

 

[lecriquet]

If you needed to switch both coax and optical or just wanted something fancy, I've heard good thing about this one.

Personally, if I just needed to switch optical sources I'd just get one of the cheap from some place like Amazon with a good return policy and return it if it didn't work in my setup.

The automatic one could be a very nice solution since it is transparent for the users (the rest of my family).

Would you recommand a good DAC with 1 Toslink input cheaper than DX3P+ (USB input and preamp not necessarily required)?

 

[maverickronin]

The automatic one could be a very nice solution since it is transparent for the users (the rest of my family).

Would you recommand a good DAC with 1 Toslink input cheaper than DX3P+ (USB input and preamp not necessarily required)?

USB is pretty much the standard input these days. I can't even think of a new DAC without it off the top of my head. If you don't need the DX3 Pro+'s headphone amp, the E30 is a cheaper alternative.

 

[Lambda]

you can actually just shove multiple outputs in one input with a Y cable with TOSLINK as long as the ones not playing are not on.
And also you can get toslink to spdift if you only have one Toslink and one Spdif

 

[lecriquet]

you can actually just shove multiple outputs in one input with a Y cable with TOSLINK as long as the ones not playing are not on.
And also you can get toslink to spdift if you only have one Toslink and one Spdif

Good tip actually!

 

[Willem]

I use the automatic one linked to above and I am more than happy. It was also measured by RME and received their seal of approval: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=29927