Search the Community

Got an SMSL SU-1 for Christmas, connected it by optical to our Samsung CU7000 55 TV, into an NAD C 350 amp, then to a pair of passive bookshelf monitors. I changed the RCA inputs from the DAC to different channels on the back of the amp (CD, AUX, VIDEO, etc.) and no sound is coming out of the monitors. I plugged a pair of headphones into the amp, and only the treble frequencies transmit. I'm worried that the DAC itself might be the issue, since -- as I was showing off the presents -- the package slipped from my fingers and dropped onto the tile floor in our house. I'll be searching for a different DAC to test if that is the issue, until then I'm hoping someone on here can provide some advice to help the situation.

Hello! I'm having a problem and I can't find any old topics that'd help. My PC was connected straight to a fiber optical router (Halny HL-4GMV4) via cable and I recieved 40-50MB/s of download speed (which is what the internet provider is promising) and all was well. Then I moved to another room in my house. An old router was connected here already through the attic (via cable of course) but I knew it'd be too slow so I changed it to something newer (TP-LINK Archer C6) which promised 1GB/s download speeds but all I'm getting is... 10MB/s download speed now once I connected it to my PC. As far as I'm aware (if my provider would provide me that much speed) I could even be getting up to 100MB/s in theory. 10MB/s isn't bad, it's just less than I expected. The cable connection goes from the LAN port of my Fiber Router straight into the WAN port of my new router. Then from the new router to my PC. My question is: Where did I mess up for my internet speed to be lowered like this? Is this a connection issue/router setting issue or maybe I got something else than promised? I'd appreciate any help you could give me. A (hopefully) helpful diagram is located below for y'all.

My Asus motherboard has a DAC inbuilt. If I connect the motherboard to 5.1 home theatre via optical SPDIF, will it output 5.1 surround audio in games (that support it) or standard 2-channel stereo? Also how do I check 5.1 audio is being outputted to the home theatre or not?

The top row of my SK64 stopped working all of a sudden. I soaked the PCB in isopropyl alcohol, dried it and plugged it in, everything's normal. But the day after the top row stops working again. LEDs still work by the way. Can someone please help?

I've perused a few posts and been googling a few days without finding an exact solution, and wondering if someone may have some insight. Sorry to be wordy, I want to try to cover all the info so people don't have to ask a bunch of questions I should already include. I'm looking to replace using onboard audio, though I fall into the "don't necessarily need to" camp, but half of my use case is giving me grief. Current specs/items: ASUS ROG Maximus X Code mobo Beyerdynamic DT 880 Special black 600 ohm headphones Yamaha AVR HTR-5240 / Klipsch R52C center/ R51M fronts Behringer X1204USB mixer -related, also have a Soundblaster G6 and another cheap USB sound chip/card. If there's another key item that you want to know, let me know, I think that's basically the items involved. A. The basic setup -- optical out from onboard mobo into my AVR, to power my speakers and all my audio runs through this most of the time. **on a whim, I recently tried using the G6 as my "main" audio and hooked it (mini toslink to toslink) to my AVR and though I feel like it shouldn't make so much difference, it really seemed to open up a lot of sound and things seemed to be clearer and better - so option 1 could simply be, get another G6. B. The secondary setup and use -- the audio from my PC is also being used for (twitch) streaming, which leads to looking for another audio solution to replace using the onboard audio. Ignoring part A as it doesn't relate to how this is used in this purpose: 1. onboard audio on mobo from Gaming PC using 1/8th to dual 1/4 into Behringer mixer on Line In 7/8. 2. cheap USB soundchip from Gaming PC using 1/8th to dual 1/4 into Behringer mixer on Line In 5/6 3. Soundblaster G6 from Gaming PC using 1/8th to dual 1/4 into Channel 3 and Channel 4 (hard panned L and R) 4. this is where I use the DT880 headphones for monitoring/gaming/stream - into the headphone jack on the mixer Now, for both of these, I don't have to change any hardware, I just have to change Windows sound output from "amp" to "line out" when streaming, and change it back when I'm done and then I carry on using my AVR and speakers instead of the mixer. This setup isn't broken in any way, but it feels like it has some areas to improve, and one of them is that the audio from the G6 is way better than my onboard audio. Now, the G6 goes into two mic channels that are amped - so I do have some gain adjustment - and maybe I should just swap these around, because for some reason my line-out from onboard audio is just REALLY quiet, with all volumes maxed. I swear it didn't used to be that way, that I had adequate volume adjustment with the slider in the past, and I tend to blame this on Windows somehow because all my sound issues tend to be because of Windows updates. That being said, I got to looking at DACs to replace using my onboard audio, and to hopefully find a combo DAC/headphone amp sufficient to power my DT880s - AND that also has an optical out so that I can use it to run audio to my AVR as I'm currently doing. I DO NOT NEED A HEADPHONE AMP THOUGH, that part truly is secondary - it is more wishful thinking. I have a feeling that the better opinions will always be to get two separate items anyway and not something that does both, but again the DAC is the main part, and fixing/improving my sound source. So far what I've found, which sort of meets criteria but maybe not perfect: a. the Topping D10 Balanced - which actually has balanced dual 1/4 outs which would be perfect to run to a mixer, and has optical out. However, not a headphone amp/preamp. b. Soundavo HP-DAC1 - roughly the same price as the Topping, has RCA outs instead of 1/4 jacks though, has optical out, and has a headphone preamp - Headphone Output Level: 0.1% THD 1KHz 32mW (32 ohm) c. FX Audio DAC-SQ3 - which looks like a low end non-branded Topping? They are sold under the same "name" on Amazon so I'm not sure on this. It looks to be the same as the D10 but with RCA. It has volume, but no headphone jacks. I keep digging and most of the headphone amps with DAC that I find do not have optical outs. The DAC I find with optical outs don't seem to also be headphone amps. The weird Soundavo HP-DAC1 might be the best solution but I'm not seeing much mention of it anywhere, and not sure if it is a solid piece, or just a solid...piece of garbo. Does anyone have any input, opinions, or ideas on this? I often find the magical niche area where no one makes an item that fits exactly what I need, and it feels like I'm at it again with finding a moderately priced item with a strong enough headphone amp and good DAC, with proper outputs. Thoughts? Am I looking for a unicorn, and should I just focus on a DAC with proper outputs instead of both? Also, I could use a DAC with XLR outs, and I "can" use RCA which would make it more universally usable for other situations, but balanced TRS 1/4 is pretty rad.

Hi all, I've spent the last few days trying to get 5.1 surround properly working windows 10 to my old Toshiba Home Theater system. I've used moded Realtek drivers, the windows drivers and even my SB G6, I've changed Chrome shortcut properties, I've switched back and forth between DTS and Dolby, and I've spent hours browsing through forums hoping to find a solution that works...No luck tbh. I have got 5.1 working but the problem with the way it was done is, it would never fill the center and rear channels, even with dolby surround fill settings, it would only play 2.1 (or 2.0 with the internal HT crossover to the sub I'm guessing). Then I figured my Sound Blaster would be able to send 5.1, but apparently windows won't send 5.1 over USB. I've tried using the basic Windows drivers as suggested to one person in a forum using the 3.5mm surround jacks on their mobo, but that wouldn't work either. So what is it that I'm missing why is it I can't have surround audio over optical WITH surround fill unless I switch back and forth between stereo and surround. Is it a problem with my receiver, my mobo, drivers, hell the color of my shirt? Would I need separate plugins or programs to resolve the issue? If these are even relevant: Z87 maximus VI ROG hero, 2.82 Realtek driver( moded and unmoded variants), Windows version 2004, Toshiba SD-V55HT. Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

Hi, I am currently looking for a compatible motherboard that works with a Thunderbolt add-in card and a Corning Thunderbolt cable. So far I tried multiple motherboards with multiple Thunderbolt add-in cards but I didn't get the Corning cable properly working under my desktop pc. With a normal copper cable I got the Dock working but with the Corning cable it only worked at random times. I tried the cable with a MacBook and it worked flawlessly. I could reboot or shutdown the MacBook and the cable would pick up the dock right away. Motherboards Asus TUF GAMING Z590-PLUS Asus ProART Z490 ASRock Z390 PRO4 Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ELITE MSI Z390-A Pro Thunderbolt add-in cards: ASUS ThunderboltEX 3-TR Gigabyte GC-TITAN RIDGE (rev. 2.0) Gigabyte GC-MAPLE RIDGE (rev. 1.0) Budget (including currency): - Other details I currently have an i9 10900k. I tried the z390 with an i9 9900k but the best result I had to far was with the 10900k and the TUF GAMING Z590-PLUS. It worked maybe 1 out 10 shutdowns. Does anyone know which motherboards that are being used in LTTs videos or can someone recommend a motherboard that works with a Corning Thunderbolt cable? In the video below they use the Asrock X570 AQUA but that would require a different CPU. In the video below I found out that they use the Asus Maximus XIII Hero (Socket 1200) Z590 but as I understood this motherboards only supports Best regards and thank you for your help

Why don’t manufacturers like sony/Microsoft innovate more on controllers? They’re basically using the same tech for the past 10-15 yrs on the analog sticks. Didn’t mice start with analog ball and now use optical laser? would like to know why console controllers don’t implement optical laser for L3/R3 also if LTT can make it a vid trying to modify a mouse into a controller. what do you guys think? Is it possible or am I dumb for thinking it lol

Hello friends, Need a little help. Can anyone tell me which one is the best budget keyboard between these two keyboards? (Both are same price in here) Fantech MK851 (Mechanical) Fantech MK884 (Optical) Thank you.

I have bad network when its low usage of network it ok but when it more family devices,it stoped working the ruter (the black thing) is ok.I have optical network and the board is my optical netwok modem/resiver (EchoLife HG8110H) in image with Celeron 550 colear without coller i added a old fan and old old termal pad on board. With some of troubleshooting I got burning temp of more than (the room temp is 30 to 37) 60-90 degrees celsius and in more closed room this stuff will burn and coz of overheating it stopped working and the half of the month the stuff dont work and my family blame me coz I am only one in family that knows.What do you think i can do for long term ? (The support team is worse than your grandma only thing is unplug replug) (Thanks in advance)

Hello guys, I've bought the Astro HDMI Optical splitter for my PS5 but my Focusrite 6i6 2nd gen needs a Coaxial SPDIF connection so I had to buy a Optical to Coaxial SPDIF converter as well. Granted it was like 14 euro's but now I hear a very very faint click once every 3-4 seconds. Mind you, when in game you don't notice at all, but when audio is low you can pick it up and it gets annoying after playing a bit. I think it is the Optical to Coaxial converter since it was so cheap (I couldn't find more expensive converters in my country (Netherlands)) and i don't think its the Astro splitter. Problem is I don't have other hardware to test with. So I was wondering if a HDMI in to HDMI out and Coaxial SPDIF out splitter exists. I can find loads of splitters like the Astro's HDMI optical splitter but none that replaces the optical SPDIF with a coaxial connection. I want to cross out one variable, which is the Optical to Coaxial converter, but I can't do that unless I get that splitter but with a coaxial SPDIF out. Any help would be VERY MUCH appreciated.

I'm a programmer & occasional gamer. I'd like to have a keyboard with the following features: - full size - somewhat tactile switches, not loud (I'm afraid linear switches would be too much a surprise for my fingers, as they are familiar only with pretty much tactile rubber dome switches) - hot-swappable - I really like the idea of being able to replace the keys when they wear out or when I want to try something new - solid, time-proven build both mechanically, electrically and firmware - RGB or at least some backlight - on-board profile memory to make it work even without any software Nice-to-have: - software for more convenient RGB & macro key tweaking) - volume knob It would be great to keep it below 200 USD. At first, I wanted to go for "normal" mechanical keyboard. Ducky One 3 Daybreak seems nice, although I would love to have more color options. Also, would like to have good software and a nice volume knob, but, well, you can't have everything even for 200-ish USD. But have lately heard their macro-handling firmware and user support is confusing. Alternatively, I was considering also Glorious GMMK full size with Gateron Brown, much cheaper than Ducky and might be OK for my needs. Then I found some people complaining about mechanical switches having chattering problems too soon (even with Cherry Browns), so I started thinking about optical switches - those should last longer, right? As long as LEDs on the PCB does not die (not sure what is their lifetime). Unfortunately, I found only one choice for full-size optical hotswappable RGB: Cooler Master CK351. That one is not very convincing. The build quality is not great and the switches are LK DarGo (proprietary?), although some sellers claim they have CK351 with Outemu Browns. Confusing. I rarely buy new expensive stuff. I expect things that cost above 100 USD to last at least 5 years. I have some soldering skills and can also do repairs, as long as PCB is in good shape and controller chips are alive. I really would like to have a platform that will serve well for many years. What do you think? Is it worth even trying to go optical or they are too new and maybe would not pleasant at all as tactile switches? Should I better stick with Ducky or GMMK and just have some spare brown keys for replacement when the original keys start acting up?

As the title says - please comment if you know a mouse that has "everything optical" - the left & right button switches and the scroll wheel encoder. Currently, I have found only one: Cooler Master MM730 There should be more. I hope. The long story. As many of you have experienced, modern mice often have cheap components and in about 2 years they might start either double-clicking, losing text selection accuracy and start dropping items in the middle of dragging, or their scroll wheel might wear out and start misbehaving. It is expected from a cheap sub-10$ mouse. But when you pay more than 20$ you feel disappointed to treat your beloved mouse as a disposable. It's especially bad when it starts misbehaving while you do some "important stuff", such as deploying a software service to a production server with 10k users. What I noticed is that the scroll wheel lasts much longer on mice with an optical scroll wheel encoder. Actually, I never have experienced a misbehaving optical scroll wheel during my 20 years of PC user experience. Ok, they might get gunky or their rubber might get sticky and disintegrate in a year or two (looking at Logitech G102) but you can fix it without soldering. However, the positive experience might come from the fact that usually these mice start misclicking in a few years, so I have no idea how long their optical scroll wheel would last. The mechanical scroll wheel encoder barely lasts 2 years for me, on every mouse I have had. Judging by reviews of Steelseries and Razer mice (even those premium gaming models with optical switches), their scroll wheel might start malfunctioning even in just a few months! I have no experience with optical switches in mice, but I thought it would be good to find a mouse that has both goodies - optical button switches (at least for left & right click buttons) AND an optical encoder. However, it turned out to be not an easy task to find one. While manufacturers brag about mechanical switches, they rarely mention the scroll wheel encoder. So with some excitement, I searched for teardown reviews of the most popular mice with optical switches - Steelseries Prime, Razer Viper and Deathadder, Roccat Burst - but was disappointed to find out that all of them have mechanical scroll wheel encoder, which, judging by complaints on Amazon and Reddit, have failed too soon for quite a few people. Now I have found only Cooler Master MM730 but I've yet to read reviews to see if it's any good - it might have some other issues. So, it would be great to have people chime in and mention other options for those who are in search of a potentially long-lasting "all-optical" mouse.

Morning Folks, I was wondering if anyone has had success waking their PC from sleep from a Keyboard/Mouse attached to a thunderbolt hub. My desktop is in the basement and I have an optical thunderbolt cable running up into my office. I have not, for the life of me, been able to get it to ever wake from sleep*. My google fu may be weak, but so far the only mentions of this problem I've found online is people not being able to fix it. Based off the video from the other day it sounds like Linus runs this setup so I was thinking someone on here may know. (I may just do a Merch Message to see if I can bother him directly on Wan show ) I've only used Asus and CalDigit equipment, but I think this may be a more universal problem. Motherboards: ProArt x570 and ProArt x670e Hubs: CalDigit TS3 and CalDigit TS4 *At this point I don't have the full rundown of what I've tried since I've gone all over the place with every solution I grasp at. I wanted to get this topic up and I'll loop back around this evening and add my troubleshooting

Hello, Thank you in advance. I'm looking to buy a pair of RS 185's but sadly my motherboard (B450 Tomahawk Max) doesn't come with an optical port to support the 185's receiver. Because of this I've been looking into USB DAC's but was wondering if I need to find one with an optical out or if when using one I can just use RCA without a drop in performance. Setup would be: Headphone Receiver -> DAC -> PC Headphone to DAC would be either by Optical or RCA, and DAC to PC would be USB Thanks again - Gilbertomus

Hi all I'm building my new home, and am looking at connecting my pc in my study to my TV in my living room. I'm planning on doing this by using optical USB and HDMI and routing them through the ceiling and walls, so I can pc game. The optical HDMI will plug into the TV from the PC, and the optical USB cable will plug into a powered hub for controllers and my lapboard. Has anyone else had experience with a setup like this? And to be clear, I know that a Shield TV is an option, but I can't take advantage of gsync on my LG OLED using that method. Hence this plan USB https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=16377 HDMI https://www.avaustralia.com.au/ruipro-8k-60hz-48gbps-hdmi-fibre-optic-cable-1-50m/

Long story short, my OD is about to become homeless, is there an enclosure or case kit that this 5.25" hunk of dated technology can rest in? ~~~Brownie points if i can use it as an external one via like some "22 pin to USB" I remember having one like this in the past but I've spent at least an hour scouring google, ebay, newegg, and amazon for products related most i could get were items for "Slim" as in "re-purposing an laptop OD so you can shove an SSD or larger HDD on there or something" please and thank you :3

Looking into the issues of Mamba vs G900, the resounding issue that really makes the difference seems to be the sensor on the Mamba being, well... Terrible. We know that Razer uses a perfect sensor on the newest Deathadder, optical rather than laser. Has anyone heard any rumours about them bringing out a 2017 Mamba with that sensor? What are the chances? Is it possible to get LTT's Edzel in on this thread to give his two cents? Even better, do you think we can persuade the LTT crew to use their inside influence with Razer to at the very least make sure they know there are people out there (Many people, google it) who REALLY WANT THIS?

so i have seen some brands advertising in their sites saying the mouse is optical if its optical or laser if its laser but not everyone does this. how can you know if the mouse is laser or optical by looking at it if im going to the store and buying?

Hey, I Am finishing my build and now have found that the case I am using does not support internal Optical Drivers, Please give suggestions for External Optical Drivers. Other Specs. CPU - Intel® Core™ i7-7700K Processor – [£302] CPU Cooler – NZXT KRAKEN X62 280mm – [£125] Motherboard – MSI GAMING M7 Z270 – [£260] Memory- G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32GB (4x 8GB) 3000MHz DDR4 – [£335] Storage- Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" – [£80] SSD - Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB 2.5 inch Solid State Drive – [£230] Graphics Card – MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING X – [$780] Case – NZXT H440 – [£125] Power Supply – Corsair RMx Series, RM650x [650W] - [£230] Optical Drive - ? Operating System – Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit) – [£30] CableMod C-Series RMi / RMx Basic Cable Kit - RED – [£80] Thanks - Roy.

Sorry for reposting this again here. First i posted this in the console gaming thread but i later realized its better to put in here. Couldn't seemed to find a way delete my old one. Recently i bought a PS4 slim just to play PS4 exclusives. I'm having a little audio issue due to lack of optical out in the PS4 slim. Back in the day i used to get the PS3 audio output over optical and input it into creative sound blaster which sounds great, but this is not possible to do with PS4 slim now. So i have done some googling. Cheapest and easiest way to solve this audio issue is buy HDMI to HDMI + SPDIF RCA Stereo splitter. Something like this http://www.jtechdigital.com/j-tech-digital-premium-quality-hdmi-to-hdmi-audio-spdif-rca-stereo-audio-extractor-converter.html My concerns are which is the best brand for these kind of splitter and will i experience any kind of quality drop. Any comments are welcome.

I have an EMU404 USB sound interface and want to grab my PS4 audio by connecting the interface to my TV's optical out. I don't have any experience with this interface and never used optical audio before. How hard would it be to integrate my game audio and my Discord/Chat app into a single headset, outputting from the PC's aux port? Is there a better way to do this? I've seen the Behringer UCA202 recommended here and elsewhere but I'm hoping not to buy extra equipment. How would the game audio compare vs. a headset connected directly to the console? Since my TV is a dated Plasma with older HDMI's, would it sound better if connect first to an HDMI extractor? (It's a slim PS4 with HDMI-out only). thanks in advance for any tips

Hi there, I have the Logitech 5.1 speakers(X-540) for my PC which has the 3x 3.5mm jacks coming out (fr/fl, bl/br, center) which currently go straight into my pc for 5.1 pc output. However, I want to output my TV (LG 43UH603V-ZE) through optical to my speakers as well. I've found this on ebay - Sound decoder Would this then output TV audio to my 5.1 speakers using an optical cable from my TV as well as from my PC?

I want to plug a ASTRO A40 into my laptop via optical cord to be able to use the mix amp and have Dolby 7.1 surround sound working. but my laptop does have a optical port in it. Is there a way to do this? One of the things I found by watching Linus's videos is something called a DAC. If something like this is needed which one should I buy. just to say I am not looking for something really expensive. Thanks PS this is my first time so I have know idea how this really works.

How would you go about removing an optical drive from the 780t? not the bay but an optical drive itself. Thanks!