ADVICE : Best way to add optical in/out on A7N8X-E motherboard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Billy Nom@tes
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Billy Nom@tes

Hi all

I am looking to add optical in/out functionality to my A7N8X-E
motherboard to allow me to transfer audio to and from my Sharp mt887
minidisc player.......

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sharp_MD-MT77+MT877.html

My first thought was to purchase a 'S/PDIF IN-OUT/COA Module'....

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/mb_accessories.htm

However, after some investigation I discovered that this module only
allows coixial connections so if my brain is working correctly, this
would mean that I woud have to purchase a Coixal to Optical Audio
'Convertor'. Obviously something I'd rather not have to do.....

My second solution is simply to purchase a sound card with this on.
Something like the Trust 514DX, which is pretty cheap.

http://www.trust.com/products/product.htm?artnr=12950

Has anyone else here needed this functionality and if so could they
offer me any advice to the best and cheapest solution please :)

TIA - bNm
 
"Billy Nom@tes" said:
Hi all

I am looking to add optical in/out functionality to my A7N8X-E
motherboard to allow me to transfer audio to and from my Sharp mt887
minidisc player.......

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sharp_MD-MT77+MT877.html

My first thought was to purchase a 'S/PDIF IN-OUT/COA Module'....

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/mb_accessories.htm

However, after some investigation I discovered that this module only
allows coixial connections so if my brain is working correctly, this
would mean that I woud have to purchase a Coixal to Optical Audio
'Convertor'. Obviously something I'd rather not have to do.....

My second solution is simply to purchase a sound card with this on.
Something like the Trust 514DX, which is pretty cheap.

http://www.trust.com/products/product.htm?artnr=12950

Has anyone else here needed this functionality and if so could they
offer me any advice to the best and cheapest solution please :)

TIA - bNm
Click to expand...

Go to Ebay and try to find the version of bracket with both coax
and optical (TOSlink) connectors. Of the three brackets shown on
the Asus accessory page, not all of them are really available
at retail. The thing is, most vendors don't want to waste their
time with accessories, as the markup is small and the bother is
large.

Looking at your minidisc page, the MD player only has an
optical input, so only one direction of transfer is needed
in your solution. (Note that with the Asus coaxial adapters,
bringing SPDIF into the computer won't work, as there is a
problem between the bracket and the ALC-650. Perhaps the
Asus bracket with the two coax and two optical connectors
would work via TOSlink-in, if you can find a source of them.)

If you decide to go with the coax-only Asus bracket, visit
here for other converters. This is the first link I found
the last time I looked. The coax to optical converter at
the top of the page looks interesting, but verify with the
vendor as to exactly what kind of jacks are on the conversion
box. You want to make sure that when it is shipped to you,
that more conversion cables are not required to wire it to
the rest of your hardware.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?category=580&template=audio

HTH,
Paul
 
On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 04:33:11 -0500, (e-mail address removed) (Paul) wrote:

Hi Paul

First off, thanks for a very complete and excellant reply to my post
mate......very much appreciated :)

After reading your post I think my route would be to try and source
out one of the ASUS brackets first and if not just go for a sound card
with both coaxial and optical in/out on it.

Thanks for the like to The Sound Professionals web site as well. I'll
keep them in mind if I need them.

Thanks again for your post - Cheers - bNm
 
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