SPDIF Cable

So what you need is a heaphone type jack towards the laptop and a rca at the avr end ?

I thought I saw a similar convertor plug at champion lam road the last time I went there.

I use it sometimes to drive my headphones direct from source.
Mx makes it.

Manek

Will check it out. Is this cable good for digital signals?

Dont hunt too much for quality.

The Headphone socket ( Mono or Stereo ? ) is not a 75 ohm connector, neither will the cable on the HP to RCA will Not be a 75 ohm cable...

The SPDIF connecter is a 75 Ohm connection.

Anyways, dont worry too much... it will work, but may not sound too great ...

Not expecting it to sound immaculate. Just listenable enough for all my flac stuff!

Would be interesting to know how the Laptop SPDIF sounds into your AVR, compared to your Laptop's Sound Card.

Do post.

I can only find out once I get access to the cable - let's see. Will keep you posted.

Sharukh its not a cable, its an adaptor plug. Male headphone jack stereo at one end and two female rca's at the other. You will need a standard rca cable in between.
Yes you do get headphone plug to rca cables too in stereo and mono.

Manek

I have an HP Laptop too which has an SPDIF out from the stereo EP jack. i tried using a stereo miniplug to RCA converter and then to my DAC. This did not work, as it turn out my HP laptop outputs Toslink over Miniplug! So I need a Optical Cable with a Miniplug optical jack at the Laptop end.

I found a Miniplug to Toslink cable from Monster at Chroma stores some time ago.

Here is a link to an adaptor -
http://www.amazon.co...dapter/dp/B0002MQGRM

SRK,

Apple store India sells a kit for Airport Express (OEM by Monster) Rs 2600 (w/ Bill and warranty) it contains

1> (Stereo) Mini to RCA cable, well made , nice white color
2> Power cord extender for Airport Express or rather any Apple products with Wal wart brick power
3> Mini to TOSLINK cable ( 1 meter)

It is a well designed package, nice look and feel, great workmanship and yet affordable. I am using this kit for Music server since last 3 months and very happy about its perfomace (or rather VFM).


Now if your AVR can accept TOSLINK input then your first ever Music Server is not far way (and not that expensive to build).

Find a pre-owned Apple Airport Express (eBay?) (or even a new one costs Rs 6000 bill and warranty Apple India store) down load some freewares like EAC, dbPowerAmp,iTunes and Voila , suddenly you are in the game of a music server!

G_S_Madhav schrieb:

Find a pre-owned Apple Airport Express (eBay?) (or even a new one costs Rs 6000 bill and warranty Apple India store) down load some freewares like EAC, dbPowerAmp,iTunes and Voila , suddenly you are in the game of a music server!

of you have a mac then an AE is good but with windows there are droppages well as a lag with AE especiually with Lossless and u are stuck with iTunes which means reconverting all your FLAC to Apple Lossless.
Setup of AE is not so easy. i did use it for some time before moving to an USB to SPDIF converter. (trends Audio)

Arj schrieb:

G_S_Madhav schrieb: Find a pre-owned Apple Airport Express (eBay?) (or even a new one costs Rs 6000 bill and warranty Apple India store) down load some freewares like EAC, dbPowerAmp,iTunes and Voila , suddenly you are in the game of a music server! of you have a mac then an AE is good but with windows there are droppages well as a lag with AE especiually with Lossless and u are stuck with iTunes which means reconverting all your FLAC to Apple Lossless. Setup of AE is not so easy. i did use it for some time before moving to an USB to SPDIF converter. (trends Audio)

Sorry Arj, I don't agree with you. I have both Win box and Mac. On Win box I use Hawkins’s USB Wifi Adapter and getting connected to Airport Express took hardly a minute! In fact I did nothing in this regards. I downloaded iTunes and installed on my win box, next I installed Hawkins USB Wifi adapter and set it in just 1 minute flat (only time required was to enter the WEP password that's all) , then I opened iTunes and in the preference tab checked the Look for Remote speakers. And that's all, next minute I was streaming music from my Win Box!

Reconverting from FLAC to Apple Lossless is one time job only and it can be done by using many excellent Freeware utilities available and further most work in Block mode , means you don't have to do it file by file.

Regarding Drop outs or lags, I didn't experience any. It is as smooth and flawless as Apple native.

Well, I faced some problems with latest iTunes 8.x version , Apple is sorting out that issue but iTunes 7.X works and there is no difference between 8.X and 7.x as far as music streaming is concerned.

I here take this opportunity to tell you all my experiences with Music Server, it works, it works and it works! At least I couldn't hear any noticeable difference between CDP playing and AE streaming. If your ripping is bit perfect , then rest assured you will get the same performance.



I tried and compared like this:

Combo 1:

Audio Note (UK) CDP playing CD

Combo 2:

Audio Note acting as a transport and feeding Digital output to a DAC

Combo 3:

Same CD ripped into Wav and later converted into Apple Lossless , streaming through AE feeding to a DAC via TOSLINK.


Hope this helps

[quote="G_S_MadhavRegarding Drop outs or lags, I didn't experience any. It is as smooth and flawless as Apple native.

Well, I faced some problems with latest iTunes 8.x version , Apple is sorting out that issue but iTunes 7.X works and there is no difference between 8.X and 7.x as far as music streaming is concerned.

[/quote]
nice to hear that !
My experience was not too great (not from sound Quality but from the setup part)..i was using an AE to a Monarchy Dip to a Wadia 12 DAc and now to a Reimyo DAP 777. but most of my rips are now either in FLAC or APE..and conversion to Apple Lossless seems like a Chore !

I do have an old mac powerbook ..but that only runs OS 10.2 and does not have an USB port (its 10 years old !!) but have been thinking of converting that to a UBUNTU based server sometime.

My AE is being used as an exteder to one of my wireless networks these days will get back on the music server part soon. but must admit that the Trends USB 10.2 is a very very good alternative to the AE if placing the pc/laptop near the stereo is not an issue.

Manek, will the converter help in digital signals - I plan to send the signal from my PC to the AVR's DAC.

Arj/Madhav, I don't want to "reconvert" any of my flacs to Apple lossless. I'll play them from fooobar prefereably and (for the time being) use the laptop as my source/transport. So it will be fixed - eliminating the need for a wifi network.

Surrealistix, when you say miniplug, do you mean heaphone jack? If yes, then I guess this is what I need.

Sharukh

I know the plug works for analogue signals. Don't know how ur laptop outputs digital signals but I think you need to heed the guys who have done this. Btw which notebook ? Does it really output toslink thru an ep jack as mentioned by other posters ?

For the guys who use wep, have you tried wpa ? Much safer. Does it work well with streaming audio ?

Manek

Manek schrieb:

Sharukh I know the plug works for analogue signals. Don't know how ur laptop outputs digital signals but I think you need to heed the guys who have done this. Btw which notebook ? Does it really output toslink thru an ep jack as mentioned by other posters ? Manek

Acer Aspire 4720.