3.5 mm jack to optical??

[admin_exported]

Hi. I've just got my airport express set up after much messing about. I see that apple says the 3.5 mm jack can become optical. How does that work?

I see Futureshop sells a couple of 3.5 to optical but don't know how it works. Does anyone out in hi-fi forum land know??

 

[Andrew Everard]

There's an optical output hidden in the centre of the 3.5mm headphone socket on some products. It's called a MiniTOSlink socket.

 

[professorhat]

You can stick one of these on any standard optical cable to make it compatible with the AE unit.

 

[Anonymous]

I see....sort of. So would one of the offerings from Chord or Van den Hull be my best options, the only two dedicated 3.5 to optical? I note futurershop claim the VDH got 5 stars off what hi-fi, but I can't find a review anywhere. Am I missing something?

 

[Messiah]

Cheaper alternatives...

 

[Anonymous]

There's a lot more available than that. I just bought a 5m toslink to minijack cable for 9? here. Converters were 80 cents.

Just googled and found this as an example in the UK http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/1m-toslink-mini-toslink-cable.html . Mark you, the nice looking gold plugs are utterly pointless.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the link Messiah...

 

[Messiah]

Your welcome.

I used to use one of the cheap ones myself with my AE with good results.