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These days optical audio is dying when it comes to home theater systems, primarily due to its lack of codec support. You can't passthrough DTS-HD over optical,

These days optical audio is dying when it comes to home theater systems, primarily due to its lack of codec support. You can't passthrough DTS-HD over optical, you can over HDMI.

kalleboo 8y ago
I used to use optical audio but it was superseded by HDMI for home theater and USB for hifi. edit: I'd be curious to see what people are using optical for today (I'm under the impression audio pros mainly use USB interfaces as well)
- silversmith 8y ago
  I bought a soundbar for my TV a couple months ago. Recent Samsung model. Has optical. I beleive the only other option was 3.5mm jack.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    Interesting. I bought a pretty cheap soundbar this year (from Yamaha) and I think it had optical as an option (along with 3.5mm and Bluetooth) but the main interface was HDMI-ARC. And it works great over ARC! The TV remote's volume buttons get passed through automatically, and it turns itself off and on along with the TV. I don't even know where the soundbar's own remote is anymore.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Shockingly, I need optical for a $300 set of gaming headphones I purchased within the last year (Astro A50). Maybe it’s the only way they can do pass through, dunno.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    Never would have guessed that for headphones! I guess they have some kind of a dock?
    - Marsymars 8y ago
      Wireless (non-Bluetooth) Sennheiser headphones also take optical input (as well as 3.5mm). Since they're only doing stereo, and require a digital-to-analog conversion on the headphone side, makes sense to avoid an additional analog-to-digital on the transmitter side.
  - dawnerd 8y ago
    It’s (likely) because they don’t want to add a secondary hdmi output for audio like a lot of other high end gear uses.
  - baddox 8y ago
    Headphones are stereo (okay, there are some exceptions), and optical S/PDIF can do stereo PCM, so there's no quality downside. But for home theater audio, you can't do any lossless multi-channel formats over optical S/PDIF, so the vast majority of enthusiasts will use HDMI.
- saxonww 8y ago
  I'm not a pro audio guy, but I think if you want to work with any external audio device and want that connection to be noise-free, your safest bet is still optical. I have an external DAC/amp, and I had been using optical until I recently upgraded my workstation. Now I am using USB, because the new motherboard doesn't have optical; I assumed USB would be fine, so the lack of optical wasn't something I considered with the purchase. Unfortunately there's an awful amount of hiss with USB on this DAC. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint what's causing it, but standard remedies I've found (eliminate ground loop, try ferrite cores, get a usb filter) have not made a difference. It could be the USB interface on the DAC side, I have no idea. While I don't _need_ an external DAC, I like using one for a few reasons: mine has a low output impedance which is good for some headphones, a convenient switch to toggle between headphone and speaker output, and a big volume knob with really smooth action. I like it. The alternative is to use the motherboard's ports; this motherboard does jack sensing such that the rear line out gets disabled if something is plugged into the front, so switching between headphones and speakers involves plugging/unplugging the headphones all the time. I also don't like adjusting volume through a tray applet.
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    Since it’s USB, it has to be the DAC generating the hiss. No amount of electrical interference can do anything to the digital audio going Ofer USB.
    - saxonww 8y ago
      I thought so too, but regardless, with this same device there is no hiss when connected via optical. So if I had the option, I'd be using optical vs. USB today, which was what the GP asked.
      - Applejinx 8y ago
        Logically, it seems like if you had a USB-optical dongle you would have no further trouble. I don't know if there is such a thing, but I do know that in that situation all the 'it's digital, so it should be perfect' talk becomes somewhat true. You'd be converting from USB to optical, at which point you'd break the ground connection which would be where your hiss is coming from (assuming it's still noiseless when still being used with optical). Then, your concern would be jitter and whether the added conversion is adding lots of jitter to the equation. Your DAC might (or might not) be good at rejecting jitter noise. I've got a Lavry DA10 that's exceptionally good at rejecting jitter (in crystal mode), but that's mastering grade and maybe overkill for you. It wouldn't add literal noise, but it's also possible for the USB connection to be more jittery than a different computer making the optical connection. That's partly hardware and partly software design (controlling how the data stream is buffered, and associated things that might slightly modulate the audio data clocking). So a change in computer feeding the DAC could also substantially affect the 'sound' of the DAC, as well as the noise issue you observed.
- beat 8y ago
  Pro audio for recording has been shifting to USB over the past few years. They were heavily on Firewire or PCI card formats before, but USB has finally gotten fast enough to do the throughput, and of course it's much cheaper and more standard.
  - plussed_reader 8y ago
    USB has had the throughput to handle multichannel audio for decades; USB still has issues regarding device priority when it comes to the nature of its interaction with the OS.
    - beat 8y ago
      And thus throughput is not enough. In pro audio, we can't afford dropouts or lost data, even when the CPU is under heavy load.
- Marsymars 8y ago
  I've got a pre-ARC TV, so use optical for my home theatre. Am hell-bent against smart TVs, so my next display will probably be either a digital signage display or a projector still without ARC.
  - rconti 8y ago
    I want to smash a Sony engineer with a hammer because my goddamned $5000 smart TV keeps insisting on switching from tv audio to external audio to tv audio to external audio to tv audio to external audio. It doesn't matter that I have my audio preference set to "prefer external audio" because the effing thing decides to switch back and forth between 2 and 30 times on startup, and maybe 80% of the time it settles (properly) on the receiver, and 20% of the time it tries to use the TV speakers, which are off, and of that 20% of the time, at least half of the time I HAVE to power everything down and start all over again. The other half of the time I can go through the menu with the slow-ass on-screen menu, and manually toggle back to receiver. I just want an effing option that says "never in hell try to use the fucking TV speakers, for the love of god".
- rsynnott 8y ago
  My (very low-end) Samsumg soundbar only has optical and 3.5mm in. I think a lot of cheap equipment still uses optical.
- Matthias247 8y ago
  Sonos, which might be one of the most hyped average user audio things in the last years, only offers optical inputs for their soundbars. Imho it's a pretty huge limitation on Sonos side, but maybe they did it because HDMI ARC is still flaky in many setups and they prefer ease of use. Or simply because of cost savings.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Still pretty popular in the 2-channel audio world... audiophiles, in other words.
- stonith 8y ago
  I'm probably in a tiny niche but I use it so that I can have optical out to my speakers and analogue out to an extension cord with a plug next to my keyboard that I plug my headphones into. This means I can swap between audio devices without touching cables or plugging things in to go headphones -> speakers depending on whether I want to annoy my wife with my music or not.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    I have the same setup actually! But my speakers only take analog in so I use a cheap USB sound card.
- ken 8y ago
  The easy answer is: same thing I was using it for 10 and 20 years ago. Audio equipment doesn't age nearly as quickly as personal computers. I'm not going to replace my entertainment system just because there's a new Mac. Also, I've had compatibility problems with HDMI between my old Mac Mini and my receiver. I don't know how to troubleshoot those sorts of issues. I do know that optical audio always works perfectly with every device I've ever used it with, though.
gcb0 8y ago
says the person who keeps buying products without optical audio ports.
babypuncher 8y ago
Somehow HDMI audio is still less convenient for me. I send HDMI to my TV which sends optical to my sound system, and it still works pretty well. Earlier this year I bought a nice sound system with a receiver for the reasons you mentioned, but it added extra lag to my video games, so I returned it. My current sound system also supports ARC but it causes most of the same problems. Decoding those fancy codecs creates lag on every system I've tried, so sticking to LPCM over optical seems to be the only way to enjoy games still.

These days optical audio is dying when it comes to home theater systems, primarily due to its lack of codec support. You can't passthrough DTS-HD over optical, you can over HDMI.

kalleboo 8y ago

I used to use optical audio but it was superseded by HDMI for home theater and USB for hifi. edit: I'd be curious to see what people are using optical for today (I'm under the impression audio pros mainly use USB interfaces as well)

silversmith 8y ago
I bought a soundbar for my TV a couple months ago. Recent Samsung model. Has optical. I beleive the only other option was 3.5mm jack.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Interesting. I bought a pretty cheap soundbar this year (from Yamaha) and I think it had optical as an option (along with 3.5mm and Bluetooth) but the main interface was HDMI-ARC. And it works great over ARC! The TV remote's volume buttons get passed through automatically, and it turns itself off and on along with the TV. I don't even know where the soundbar's own remote is anymore.
mikestew 8y ago
Shockingly, I need optical for a $300 set of gaming headphones I purchased within the last year (Astro A50). Maybe it’s the only way they can do pass through, dunno.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Never would have guessed that for headphones! I guess they have some kind of a dock?
  - Marsymars 8y ago
    Wireless (non-Bluetooth) Sennheiser headphones also take optical input (as well as 3.5mm). Since they're only doing stereo, and require a digital-to-analog conversion on the headphone side, makes sense to avoid an additional analog-to-digital on the transmitter side.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  It’s (likely) because they don’t want to add a secondary hdmi output for audio like a lot of other high end gear uses.
- baddox 8y ago
  Headphones are stereo (okay, there are some exceptions), and optical S/PDIF can do stereo PCM, so there's no quality downside. But for home theater audio, you can't do any lossless multi-channel formats over optical S/PDIF, so the vast majority of enthusiasts will use HDMI.
saxonww 8y ago
I'm not a pro audio guy, but I think if you want to work with any external audio device and want that connection to be noise-free, your safest bet is still optical. I have an external DAC/amp, and I had been using optical until I recently upgraded my workstation. Now I am using USB, because the new motherboard doesn't have optical; I assumed USB would be fine, so the lack of optical wasn't something I considered with the purchase. Unfortunately there's an awful amount of hiss with USB on this DAC. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint what's causing it, but standard remedies I've found (eliminate ground loop, try ferrite cores, get a usb filter) have not made a difference. It could be the USB interface on the DAC side, I have no idea. While I don't _need_ an external DAC, I like using one for a few reasons: mine has a low output impedance which is good for some headphones, a convenient switch to toggle between headphone and speaker output, and a big volume knob with really smooth action. I like it. The alternative is to use the motherboard's ports; this motherboard does jack sensing such that the rear line out gets disabled if something is plugged into the front, so switching between headphones and speakers involves plugging/unplugging the headphones all the time. I also don't like adjusting volume through a tray applet.
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Since it’s USB, it has to be the DAC generating the hiss. No amount of electrical interference can do anything to the digital audio going Ofer USB.
  - saxonww 8y ago
    I thought so too, but regardless, with this same device there is no hiss when connected via optical. So if I had the option, I'd be using optical vs. USB today, which was what the GP asked.
    - Applejinx 8y ago
      Logically, it seems like if you had a USB-optical dongle you would have no further trouble. I don't know if there is such a thing, but I do know that in that situation all the 'it's digital, so it should be perfect' talk becomes somewhat true. You'd be converting from USB to optical, at which point you'd break the ground connection which would be where your hiss is coming from (assuming it's still noiseless when still being used with optical). Then, your concern would be jitter and whether the added conversion is adding lots of jitter to the equation. Your DAC might (or might not) be good at rejecting jitter noise. I've got a Lavry DA10 that's exceptionally good at rejecting jitter (in crystal mode), but that's mastering grade and maybe overkill for you. It wouldn't add literal noise, but it's also possible for the USB connection to be more jittery than a different computer making the optical connection. That's partly hardware and partly software design (controlling how the data stream is buffered, and associated things that might slightly modulate the audio data clocking). So a change in computer feeding the DAC could also substantially affect the 'sound' of the DAC, as well as the noise issue you observed.
beat 8y ago
Pro audio for recording has been shifting to USB over the past few years. They were heavily on Firewire or PCI card formats before, but USB has finally gotten fast enough to do the throughput, and of course it's much cheaper and more standard.
- plussed_reader 8y ago
  USB has had the throughput to handle multichannel audio for decades; USB still has issues regarding device priority when it comes to the nature of its interaction with the OS.
  - beat 8y ago
    And thus throughput is not enough. In pro audio, we can't afford dropouts or lost data, even when the CPU is under heavy load.
Marsymars 8y ago
I've got a pre-ARC TV, so use optical for my home theatre. Am hell-bent against smart TVs, so my next display will probably be either a digital signage display or a projector still without ARC.
- rconti 8y ago
  I want to smash a Sony engineer with a hammer because my goddamned $5000 smart TV keeps insisting on switching from tv audio to external audio to tv audio to external audio to tv audio to external audio. It doesn't matter that I have my audio preference set to "prefer external audio" because the effing thing decides to switch back and forth between 2 and 30 times on startup, and maybe 80% of the time it settles (properly) on the receiver, and 20% of the time it tries to use the TV speakers, which are off, and of that 20% of the time, at least half of the time I HAVE to power everything down and start all over again. The other half of the time I can go through the menu with the slow-ass on-screen menu, and manually toggle back to receiver. I just want an effing option that says "never in hell try to use the fucking TV speakers, for the love of god".
rsynnott 8y ago
My (very low-end) Samsumg soundbar only has optical and 3.5mm in. I think a lot of cheap equipment still uses optical.
Matthias247 8y ago
Sonos, which might be one of the most hyped average user audio things in the last years, only offers optical inputs for their soundbars. Imho it's a pretty huge limitation on Sonos side, but maybe they did it because HDMI ARC is still flaky in many setups and they prefer ease of use. Or simply because of cost savings.
JohnBooty 8y ago
Still pretty popular in the 2-channel audio world... audiophiles, in other words.
stonith 8y ago
I'm probably in a tiny niche but I use it so that I can have optical out to my speakers and analogue out to an extension cord with a plug next to my keyboard that I plug my headphones into. This means I can swap between audio devices without touching cables or plugging things in to go headphones -> speakers depending on whether I want to annoy my wife with my music or not.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  I have the same setup actually! But my speakers only take analog in so I use a cheap USB sound card.
ken 8y ago
The easy answer is: same thing I was using it for 10 and 20 years ago. Audio equipment doesn't age nearly as quickly as personal computers. I'm not going to replace my entertainment system just because there's a new Mac. Also, I've had compatibility problems with HDMI between my old Mac Mini and my receiver. I don't know how to troubleshoot those sorts of issues. I do know that optical audio always works perfectly with every device I've ever used it with, though.

gcb0 8y ago

says the person who keeps buying products without optical audio ports.

babypuncher 8y ago

Somehow HDMI audio is still less convenient for me. I send HDMI to my TV which sends optical to my sound system, and it still works pretty well. Earlier this year I bought a nice sound system with a receiver for the reasons you mentioned, but it added extra lag to my video games, so I returned it. My current sound system also supports ARC but it causes most of the same problems. Decoding those fancy codecs creates lag on every system I've tried, so sticking to LPCM over optical seems to be the only way to enjoy games still.