Sublime Sunday is here, so I decided to rant about connectivity of TV to audio equipment.
For high-end folks, the TV is usually connected to a device called an AV Receiver and that in turns are connected to speakers for the audio. The AV Receiver performs switching functions, decoding and amplifying audio etc.
Example of a Pioneer AV Receiver.
Then there are folks with just a simple TV and was ok with it. And one day, the speakers in the TV died or produced distortion... what do you do?
You want to just connect a simple pair of speakers to the TV. But wait, the TV doesn't have any audio output other than TOSLINK optical output.
I've discovered there are two solutions :
- Connect the TOSLINK optical output with a TOSLINK cable to a Digital to Analog Convertor, and the output can go to any audio equipment :
Of course you can only connect one input device (ie. the TV). The DAC is fairly cheap, probably under US$20
- The second method is to extract the audio from the HDMI cable/output... (yes using yet ANOTHER device)
There are even more sophisticated one with switch built-in
However, one caveat is that with HDMI connections, you have to be clear about the signals you are transmitting, is it HDMI 1.4a/b cables, HDMI 2.x standard, HDCP 2.2 standards etc.
Mixing equipment with different standards can be a nightmare. (if you have the money, get the HDFury device to solve all these problems)
Happy Sunday Peeps !