Does anyone here actually use their TOSLINK port on their MOBO?

Eshelmen

Eshelmen

Supreme [H]ardness
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TV's are slowly ruling them out, yet motherboards continue to include the beautiful feature...at least for now.

Just curious, anyone here actually using theirs? Because I do! And I wouldn't have it any other way until our GPU's can use/run ARC or a similar feature through an AV. Or am I missing a better feature to provide higher quality sound from and to my PC using my speakers/AV?
If there is none, I must admit that TOSLINK MUST stay.


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pendragon1 said:
yes because my amp doesnt have hdmi audio.
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Wait, what? Arc works on GPUs? Explain... I'm using a display port for my monitor to my gpu, how would I change that up to NOT use toslink AND get higher quality audio?
 
I have it hooked up on my Dad's PC to get sound to his Bose Soundbar he has under his monitor.
 
I'm not currently using toslink, but I have in the past, and I even soldered a janky coax spdif output when I had headers on the motherboard but couldn't find a premade extension for a decent price; still have that somewhere, but also not in use.

HDMI audio replaced it for me, because I was using it for a tv box, and after a few rounds of upgrades, my receivers and my systems can all do hdmi audio.
 
Yes. In fact, I had to install a s/pdif plate to use it. My sound deck that I use for this system does not have HDMI connections for audio.
 
Eshelmen said:
Wait, what? Arc works on GPUs? Explain... I'm using a display port for my monitor to my gpu, how would I change that up to NOT use toslink AND get higher quality audio?
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not sure, as my amp also doesnt have arc. it an older onkyo and its hdmi inputs only take the video signal, sound has to be carried separately via rca or optical. so my hdmi goes to the tv and optical to the amp.
 
Yep, goes to my JDS Labs DAC, then to my JDS Atom Headphone Amp.

Lets me swap the DAC over to USB for my laptop if I want to use it at my regular desk.
 
I do both from the motherboard and the TV, make it easy to have a long cable to an DAC/Amp
 
Optical is the only sure way to couple/decouple the audio source and audio destination.

Even a card with balanced audio outputs and the right receiver might still be susceptible. Balanced audio does not prevent EMI hell in all cases.

External DACs also don't inherently prevent buzzing/humming, unless there's a proper optical USB isolator (the ones I'd trust are a bit pricey) and the DAC receives power from a good 5V supply meant for audio (even a linear would do) AND there is no common ground between sender (USB out)/receiver (DAC in).

Optical 2024 !
 
Eshelmen said:
Wait, what? Arc works on GPUs? Explain... I'm using a display port for my monitor to my gpu, how would I change that up to NOT use toslink AND get higher quality audio?
Click to expand...
Displayport supports audio. It should just appear as an audio device in the list when you click the speaker icon. The name is usually something like the model name of the monitor or amp.

On the original topic, I'm not currently using the TOSLINK port on any of my motherboards, but I have in the recent past. It's nice, but it only supports up to four or five channels, so it's not good enough for the real high end anymore. I assume those assume you'd use HDMI or Displayport.
 
Luke M said:
It's a shame that the optical audio port has never been updated. It's stuck in the year 1982 forever. But still beautiful because of the electrical isolation.
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The most frustrating thing about this is that there were TOSLINK transceivers capable of 125Mbps available in the past, e.g. the now-unavailable Toshiba TOTX1701. That's way more than needed even for something silly like 10 channels at 24/96 (23Mbps). It's just that no one bothered to standardize the actual transmission of audio using them.
 
RazorWind said:
Displayport supports audio. It should just appear as an audio device in the list when you click the speaker icon. The name is usually something like the model name of the monitor or amp.

On the original topic, I'm not currently using the TOSLINK port on any of my motherboards, but I have in the recent past. It's nice, but it only supports up to four or five channels, so it's not good enough for the real high end anymore. I assume those assume you'd use HDMI or Displayport.
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What about HDMI Only from my GPU to the AV?My av doesn't have a display port

If that's the case, I'm doing it wrong.
 
Optical out from my motherboard into a Schiit Syn to create 5.1 surround sound from any source.
 
Eshelmen said:
What about HDMI Only from my GPU to the AV?My av doesn't have a display port

If that's the case, I'm doing it wrong.
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I think that should work, but you may have to do some fiddling to keep the OS from treating it as a monitor.
 
I have my htpc and ps3 hooked up via toslink to my ht sound setup. It removes the need for ground loops. On my main rig, I have to use a ground loop on my usb dac or I get weird hum.
 
No, but I absolutely always use it coming from the Sound Blaster AE-5 Plus going to the Z5500. Sound quality is fantastic. Always optical 👍
And if the card dies or I need to connect to a different device than yes I'll use the optical out from the Z790 Aorus Master.
 
Yes because my monitors don't support ARC and I can't get 1440p 144hz HDMI through my receiver.
 
Eshelmen said:
TV's are slowly ruling them out, yet motherboards continue to include the beautiful feature...at least for now.

Just curious, anyone here actually using theirs? Because I do! And I wouldn't have it any other way until our GPU's can use/run ARC or a similar feature through an AV. Or am I missing a better feature to provide higher quality sound from and to my PC using my speakers/AV?
If there is none, I must admit that TOSLINK MUST stay.


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Yup. High end stereo audio works great on them.
 
I use one from my Yamaha AVR to my TV, but since GPUs have had HDMI audio baked in, I run with mobo audio disabled (don't need a mic). The reason is I could never get true surround in games with optical to the AVR. HDMI passes positional channels correctly in every game.
 
pendragon1 said:
that is true, i have to use "hacked" drivers to add DTS 5.1 back in for it to work with games.
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I don't get why sound card manufacturers (or Realtek/ Asus for on board) don't include true passthrough, or maybe it's a windows thing.
 
Galvanic Isolation ftw. I use my laptop for recording game footage off my PC and having TOSLINK in the chain is a godsend to prevent the laptops electrical noisiness (it's really bad) from messing up the audio stream. Using HDMI audio is a no-go thanks to Nvidia driver issues causing game stuttering and audio dropouts under heavy CPU load if the HDMI driver is so much as installed let alone in use.
TOSLINK is def a feature I look for on mobos and will continue to do so, even if it's considered outdated.
 
I used to. But then I got a receiver that is e-Arc capable, and I do enjoy lossless surround sound.
RazorWind said:
I think that should work, but you may have to do some fiddling to keep the OS from treating it as a monitor.
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One of the disadvantages to that particular solution is that you cannot prevent the OS from treating an HDMI signal as a monitor. The image signal and audio signal are inseparable last I checked.
 
vick1000 said:
I don't get why sound card manufacturers (or Realtek/ Asus for on board) don't include true passthrough, or maybe it's a windows thing.
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So, spdif/toslink can do either 2-channel pcm or 5.1 with dts or dolby digital. You can passthrough from a recorded file assuming it's a format your receiver can decode, but a video game is generating a live stream in N channels, not playing back recordings; something on the system needs to encode it, but it would probably need a license (although patents should be expired by now), and I guess none of the vendors want to spend the money on it anymore. It probably adds an encoding delay too, but unless you're rocking a CRT, your monitor is probably adding enough delay that audio encoding wouldn't be noticable.
 
vick1000 said:
I don't get why sound card manufacturers (or Realtek/ Asus for on board) don't include true passthrough, or maybe it's a windows thing.
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Not enough bandwidth on optical u less you have compression. Compression algorithms cost money.
 
I had one mobo that generated electrical noise. It was the only time I used toslink to a DAC.
 
Haven't used mobo toslink or coax since I switched to USB Dacs several years ago. I still use toslink to connect my TV to a pair of Swan M300 speakers.
 
Used to use that with my logitech Z680 but switch to Coax digital when I upgraded to a Mobo with coax digital out. But I have since gone full AV receiver, 4K blu-ray drive and a 4K monitor for Dolby Atmos media streaming (see Sig). For pure Audio, I've been using a Sony PHA-2A DAC and am now using my WM1A M2 with IER-Z1R.
 
I have never used it but I always like to see it. It's like the PS/2 port or an aux jack on a phone. It's worth having just for that one day I may need it without having to delay and buy a separate adapter.
 
Eshelmen said:
What about HDMI Only from my GPU to the AV?My av doesn't have a display port

If that's the case, I'm doing it wrong.
Click to expand...


Are you using DP because you're running at above 60hz? Otherwise any current AV receiver will be fine for up to 4K@60hz over HDMI. If your GPU and Monitor support HDMI 2.1 (4K@120hz), then you'll need to get an receiver that support HDMI 2.1.
 
Another one of those "it just works" technologies. My Soundbar is HDMI ARC capable as it my TV but if I hook it all up with HDMI it just loses sync with the picture. If I slip in the TOSLINK...perfect everytime.
 
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