2016 MacBook Pro drops digital audio out on 3.5mm jack

[crystal6tak]

Continuing the train on the awesome work Apple is putting out!

 

It appears both the 13 and 15 inch MBP will not have digital out on the 3.5 mm jack. Source.

 

Quote

AppleInsider contacted Apple about the matter, and was told that the feature was removed due to a lack of customers using the functionality. Additionally, we were told that "plenty of USB-C zero-latency professional peripherals are available now, or coming very soon" featuring optical audio out connectivity.

I personally don't know much about what the optical out is capable of, some quick google search says it's for outputting digital signals, such as for speakers (home theatre sound systems for example) or I guess external DAC/AMP?

 

As Humbug has pointed out, that headline was probably written by a non-techie . He probably just meant digital, so yea, can't connect speakers or DAC/AMP's

 

I suppose casual facebook viewers won't mind this change, but I would think professionals would very much like this functionality... 

 

What are your thoughts?

[RGProductions]

3 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

 

 

It's a light based audio connector.

[Tech_Dreamer]

WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????

[Humbug]

think that headline was written by a non-techie.

the 3.5mm jack is used for analog electrical output.

digital output comes in the form of electrical or optical outputs, but these are not 'on 3.5mm'. They use different connectors.

 

what they want to say I think is that the regular 3.5mm analog audio jack will be the only audio out and it is analog. So those who want digital out in order to use with external DACs and receivers will need to install drivers and use USB.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Ofc a 3.5mm won't be able to support a fiber cable...I didn't know it outputted light in the first place  

[crystal6tak]

6 minutes ago, Humbug said:

think that headline was written by a non-techie.

the 3.5mm jack is an analog output.

digital output comes in the form of electrical or optical outputs, these are not 'on 3.5mm'. They use different connectors.

 

what they want to say I think is that the regular 3.5mm analog audio jack will be the only analog out. So those who want digital out to use with external DACs and receivers will need to install drivers and use USB.

yea, editing title...

[Dietrichw]

I forgot that Apple even included a 3.5mm SPDIF combo. I remember looking it up once because I was confused why I could see a red glow from the 3.5mm jack of a mac mini.

 

 

[Trixanity]

Yup, a 3.5mm jack can have a optical output inside it. It's called mini toslink or spdif, so they probably removed it in favor of a standard jack for no reason whatsoever. 

[zMeul]

1 hour ago, Humbug said:

think that headline was written by a non-techie.

the 3.5mm jack is used for analog electrical output.

digital output comes in the form of electrical or optical outputs, but these are not 'on 3.5mm'. They use different connectors.

 

what they want to say I think is that the regular 3.5mm analog audio jack will be the only audio out and it is analog. So those who want digital out in order to use with external DACs and receivers will need to install drivers and use USB.

there are a couple of 3.5mm jacks that also offer TOS Link

so, I'm guessing they no longer have the TOS Link

 

[VerticalDiscussions]

Apple, what in the actual heck o-O? Oh btw, the new Macbooks dont seem to offer surge protection for its motherboard either o-O! EverythingApplePro...

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 minute ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

the new Macbooks dont seem to offer surge protection for its motherboard either o-O!

Austin used one of those USB things that can kill a whole laptop and the Macbook pro 13 he tested on (with a Type C to Type A adapter) didn't die  

[VerticalDiscussions]

Just now, Mr.Meerkat said:

-snip-

Some say the adapter Eap used later on didnt have ESD guards, but he added that previous Macbooks had ESD guards and now it seems it got removed. So he was using an adapter that had ESD guards, the Macbook was supposed to have them aswell, but he later swapped out the adapter for one without any protection and discovered so did the laptop lack. Like, rofl xD!

[Mr.Meerkat]

Just now, VerticalDiscussions said:

Some say the adapter Eap used later on didnt have ESD guards, but he added that previous Macbooks had ESD guards and now it seems it got removed. So he was using an adapter that had ESD guards, the Macbook was supposed to have them aswell, but he later swapped out the adapter for one without any protection and discovered so did the laptop lack. Like, rofl xD!

Fair enough then...big mistake apple  

[Dabombinable]

3 hours ago, Dietrichw said:

I forgot that Apple even included a 3.5mm SPDIF combo. I remember looking it up once because I was confused why I could see a red glow from the 3.5mm jack of a mac mini.

 

 

Fun fact, the Asus U38N that my Grandmother bought back in 2006 has digital audio out on its headphone jack, to go with the micropphone and configurable audio jack (the third one can be used for speakers or a a microphone).

[tlink]

3 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Ofc a 3.5mm won't be able to support a fiber cable...I didn't know it outputted light in the first place  

my laptops 3.5mm jack actually has mini spdif build in.

[goodtofufriday]

So how is this laptop a pro model...

[daniielrp]

43 minutes ago, goodtofufriday said:

So how is this laptop a pro model...

Because it is better than the non-pro model

[Nowak]

Laptop of the fuckin' year, amirite? So many screwups.

[S w a t s o n]

While I agree with a lot of people's gripes about the pro, this is not a real "the pro isnt pro" issue. Pretty much no one uses optical via 3.5mm. And dont come to me like "Oh I totally know this guy that uses it". Yes I'm sure like 0.01% of macbook pro owners used it, not really significant enough to matter. Though if they already implemented it they could have kept it.

[.spider.]

Just get a dongle and use HDMI as audio output, it is much better than s/pdif anyway.

 

dongle...

 

[S w a t s o n]

1 minute ago, .spider. said:

^Just get a dongle and use HDMI as audio output, it is much better than s/pdif anyways.

Honestly since people with these macbooks have to carry around dongles as it is, maybe just use good old 3.5mm analog audio.

[SSL]

6 hours ago, Humbug said:

think that headline was written by a non-techie.

the 3.5mm jack is used for analog electrical output.

digital output comes in the form of electrical or optical outputs, but these are not 'on 3.5mm'. They use different connectors.

 

Ah, irony.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Honestly I don't see the point in TOSLINK anyway at least if you have a 5.1 setup. TOSLINK doesn't have enough bandwidth for 5.1 uncompressed audio. This is a problem with games that support 5.1 surround because they must encode the audio using whatever format my sound system takes, which most of them don't.

 

Besides I think HDMI has basically taken over TOSLINK's role anyway.

[zMeul]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Honestly I don't see the point in TOSLINK anyway at least if you have a 5.1 setup. TOSLINK doesn't have enough bandwidth for 5.1 uncompressed audio. This is a problem with games that support 5.1 surround because they must encode the audio using whatever format my sound system takes, which most of them don't.

 

Besides I think HDMI has basically taken over TOSLINK's role anyway.

from an audio signal perspective, TOSLink will always be superior, why? because it doesn't carry an electrical signal - thus no "parasites"

for the same reason, "shielding" (isolation) electronics has been done with optocouplers 

 

as for games, games use either bitstream (compressed) DD or DTS

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

from an audio signal perspective, TOSLink will always be superior, why? because it doesn't carry an electrical signal - thus no "parasites"

for the same reason, "shielding" (isolation) electronics has been done with optocouplers 

From a electronics perspective, if it's digital all the way until the very last step, it doesn't matter. If you have so much noise that your digital signal gets hosed, you have a bigger issue to tackle. The only time I've see optocouplers used for electronics isolation is in low-end power supplies. Higher end ones use isolation transformers.

 

At the end of the day though, TOSLINK lacks features that I need. It doesn't matter if it's optical.