Hi everyone,
I have a Chromecast Audio (CCA) connected to the optical (S/PDIF) media input of a Denon AVR-X3700H. This setting allows me to stream music via WiFi from my phone to the CCA, which sends the digital audio (over a Toslink cable) to the optical media input of the AVR. The signal conversion from digital to analog does not happen in the CCA, but in the AVR. (I presume this is better than connecting the CCA to the analog AUX input of the AVR, right?)
The arrangement described above works fine for CD quality (16/44.1) audio. It works also for stereo audio with the following bit depth/sampling rate combinations: 16/48, 16/96, 24/44.1, and 24/48. It ceases to function properly at 24/96, in which case there are quite frequent (and very audible!) "hiccups" in the sound. Hence the maximum bit rate accepted by the optical input of the AVR appears to be quite low... I found this strange, as the AVR-X3700H accepts audio with much higher bit rates (5.1 audio, DTS 24/96) via its HDMI input.
In order to check it this was an S/PDIF restriction, I connected the same CCA to the optical input of a Loxjie A30 DAC/amp. It worked flawlessly at 24/96, so the bottleneck indeed appears to be in the optical input of the AVR. Why doesn't it accept audio bit rates comparable to the ones taken by the HDMI input?
I have a Chromecast Audio (CCA) connected to the optical (S/PDIF) media input of a Denon AVR-X3700H. This setting allows me to stream music via WiFi from my phone to the CCA, which sends the digital audio (over a Toslink cable) to the optical media input of the AVR. The signal conversion from digital to analog does not happen in the CCA, but in the AVR. (I presume this is better than connecting the CCA to the analog AUX input of the AVR, right?)
The arrangement described above works fine for CD quality (16/44.1) audio. It works also for stereo audio with the following bit depth/sampling rate combinations: 16/48, 16/96, 24/44.1, and 24/48. It ceases to function properly at 24/96, in which case there are quite frequent (and very audible!) "hiccups" in the sound. Hence the maximum bit rate accepted by the optical input of the AVR appears to be quite low... I found this strange, as the AVR-X3700H accepts audio with much higher bit rates (5.1 audio, DTS 24/96) via its HDMI input.
In order to check it this was an S/PDIF restriction, I connected the same CCA to the optical input of a Loxjie A30 DAC/amp. It worked flawlessly at 24/96, so the bottleneck indeed appears to be in the optical input of the AVR. Why doesn't it accept audio bit rates comparable to the ones taken by the HDMI input?