New Naim Uniti Owner; Questions on TV/PS3 cabling

Posted by: BryceC on 26 January 2011

My apologies for the simplistic question, but I couldn't find an answer searching this forum. Here goes...

I have a naimuniti, a Panasonic plasma and a Sony PS3, which is used to play dvds and bluray discs. What would be the best way to connect these devices? The TV and PS3 both have optical (toslink), component/RCA, and HDMI connections.

Currently, I have the TV and PS3 connected with an HDMI cable and the PS3 connected to the uniti via optical cable. This works perfectly for watching movies from the PS3: however, wondering if optical cable is better/worse than component for sound quality?

I use an antenna to get over-the-air TV reception. When I connected the TV to the uniti with a separate optical cable I don't get any audio when watching broadcast TV. Does this have anything to do with how I am getting the signal? I am fairly confident I have everything on the TV and uniti set up properly. Should I use an component cable instead?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Posted on: 26 January 2011 by tonym

Component on its own doesn't carry audio - I suspect you mean analogue phonos that are part of a 5-lead component interconnect.

What you might be able to do is to leave the PS3 connected to the TV by HDMI, then take the optical output from the TV into the Uniti (don't know much about these but I assume it's got a digital input?) which should then route the digital signal from the PS3 via the TV when you select the PS3 input on the TV. However, this might mean the digital signal in the HDMI is converted to analogue in the TV then re-digitised before sending it to the Uniti - not good.

Does the Uniti have two digital inputs? If so you're better off sending digital audio separately from the TV & PS3. If there's only one Toslink input on the Uniti you can change optical to co-ax using a convertor which is readily obtainable, or use a two-way Toslink switch.

Posted on: 27 January 2011 by naimUnT

Hi Bryce

I have a similar set-up, namely, PS3, NaimUniti and LED TV. The best route for audio and visual quality for watching DVDs from your Sony PS3 is what you have done! Optical from the PS3 to the NaimUniti DAC gives very good audio quality, and the HDMI from the PS3 to the TV ensures the highest quality for picture quality. However, in my setup, I have problems with syncing; the speech and diction does not coincide with the audio if I route the audio via optical from PS3 to NaimUniti DAC! I have to use HDMI from PS3 to TV and RCA from TV to NaimUniti analog input!

As for your second query, I suspect you will need to configure your TV settings to route optical to NaimUniti. Give this a try!

Posted on: 27 January 2011 by BryceC

Thanks to both of you for the helpful replies. I tried several more configurations and still can't get any audio over optical cable when watching broadcast TV here near NYC (where reception is generally excellent from a rooftop antenna). However, no problems with getting the audio signal from the PS3 using the same optical cable (PS3 connected with HDMI to TV, which is then connected with optical to uniti) I will try the stereo RCA connection between the TV and uniti and report the results.

Posted on: 28 January 2011 by Richard Dane

Lip synch can be a problem in AV set-ups and may be something you can get around by using the optical out from the TV. Check in the TV set up menus to see whether the digital output is switched on and outputting in Stereo/PCM.

Posted on: 28 January 2011 by BryceC

Thank you, Richard.
I have things working now with optical from PS-uniti and RCA from TV-uniti. I am still a bit confused why the toslink from the digital out on the TV to the digital input of the uniti didn't work (I used a cable with Toslink connectors on both ends and linked to "digital 2" on the back of the uniti...also tried "digital 4"). I know the TV button on the uniti's remote selects the "digital 1" input on the back, which, if I understand correctly accepts a mini Toslink connector...? Might that have been my error? Should I have used the digital 1 input for TV audio and a Toslink to miniToslink cable?

Finally--promise--does it matter what cables I buy; mine are cheapies from Radio Shack.