I wonder if some DACs are picky*?
Some DACs
are picky about the optical signal they receive. Some cases in point:
1. An iMac G5 optical out to a Perpetual Technologies P3A DAC - the Mini-Toslink to Toslink cable (no adapter) had a red light at the end of the cable and the Mac's audio properties were correctly set, but no sound. Turns out the Mac and cable produced sound when connected to the optical input of a Sony pre-pro.
Help with iMac G5 to Perpetual Technologies P3A toslink problem 2. A friend's Visio soundbar would not produce any sound with the optical output from a Panasonic plasma TV. The DVD player's optical output plugged into the soundbar would produce sound, and the Panasonic TV's optical output plugged into his AV receiver would produce sound.
3. Some high jitter sources like the Apple Airport Express N often would result in either no sound or sound with dropouts when plugged into DACs using the ESS Sabre 32 DAC chip (unless one of the inputs was modified with a "reduced jitter aperature" setting to accomodate the Airport Express as was done with the Peachtree Audio integrateds and DACs).
I think we should exhaust all posibilities of audio settings, cables, connectors, etc., but in the end some optical digital audio combos are just not going to work. After the basics are checked, the best troubleshooting is going to be plugging the optical source and cable either into another DAC or AV processor/receiver.
In Jeff's case though, it is rather odd because it was working originally. Hopefully a replacement Mini-Toslink to Toslink cable (preferred) or an adapter on a known working standard cable will be the answer to his problem.
Steve
