Why doesn't Apple TV or Fire have an optical / digital output? Is there an alternative?

cdspeedy

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May 30, 2021
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Hi,
On my living room HiFi I'd like to be able to:
  1. Listen to Amazon Music HD
  2. Watch Youtube with high quality stereo audio.

I want my dedicated HiFi DAC to do the audio conversion, not my AV receiver (which is great for surround and movies but pales against my Arcam FMJ D33 DAC).

The challenges with this are:
  • simple streaming boxes like Apple TV of Fire Stick don't have optical or coax outputs; just HDMI. By contrast, HiFi DACs don't tend to accept HDMI.
  • I'm not keen on those cheapo HDMI extractors from Amazon: I've tried them before and there must be a better solution.
  • I want to be able to watch the accompanying video - Bach Netherlands Society on youtube, for example, is superb. An audio only streamer like the Blue Sound Node doesn't do video.
It seems like such a simple thing to do, but I just can't work out a solution. Has anyone got one?
 

iMark

Well-known member
That kind of setup works really well for us. We've got an Apple TV, BluRay player and Humax DVR connected to the the TV by HDMI. The TV is connected by optical cable to our Yamaha RN-602.
The system is also integrated with a Logitech Harmony hub. Once programmed you can switch activities without having to switch inputs on different remotes.
 
D

Deleted member 116933

Guest
I understand your frustration as you don't always want to have the TV on just to listen to music which could be done headless and directly into a DAC or other which sounds better then passing through the TV. It would make the perfect streamer for apple music now that its going lossless. It would make a lot of sense for it to carry one still. Off the top of my head, i can't think of anything else that has an optical cable. I suspect in a few yeah they will become a thing of the past on TV's as well.
 

cdspeedy

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May 30, 2021
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I have a Pioneer Kuro (which still has a fantastic picture quality and I'm not looking to replace it any time soon). The manual states that "when signals are input from the HDMI terminals, no signals are output from the DIGITAL OUT terminal. I also tried it just in case, and it didn't work.

millenia_one - you may be right. In that case though, DACs need to start accepting HDMI as an audio input.

I do find it strange. Over the years there has been such a convergence between audio and vision gear. Yet: in some ways they still don't speak to each other.
 

Tinman1952

Well-known member
Hi,
On my living room HiFi I'd like to be able to:
  1. Listen to Amazon Music HD
  2. Watch Youtube with high quality stereo audio.

I want my dedicated HiFi DAC to do the audio conversion, not my AV receiver (which is great for surround and movies but pales against my Arcam FMJ D33 DAC).

The challenges with this are:
  • simple streaming boxes like Apple TV of Fire Stick don't have optical or coax outputs; just HDMI. By contrast, HiFi DACs don't tend to accept HDMI.
  • I'm not keen on those cheapo HDMI extractors from Amazon: I've tried them before and there must be a better solution.
  • I want to be able to watch the accompanying video - Bach Netherlands Society on youtube, for example, is superb. An audio only streamer like the Blue Sound Node doesn't do video.
It seems like such a simple thing to do, but I just can't work out a solution. Has anyone got one?
The HDMI audio extractors seem to be the only option. John Darko uses one and is happy with it. Also I’ve read on some forums people have used them to extract DSD from the HDMI format as I2S with great results. I think you need to spend at least £50 for a decent one… 🙂
 
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